THE FRAGRANCE OF GERANIUMS
A Time of Grace
Book One
By Alicia G. Ruggieri
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Copyright © by 2014 Alicia G. Ruggieri
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, except for brief quotes used for review purposes.
Cover design by Rachel Rossano
http://www.rossanodesigns.weebly.com
All Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version.
This is a work of fiction. While every effort has been made to ensure general historical authenticity, all names, incidents, events, and characters should not be construed as real.
BOOKS BY ALICIA G. RUGGIERI
A Time of Grace trilogy:
The Fragrance of Geraniums
All Our Empty Places
(Book 3 – releasing in Winter 2015-16)
The House of Mercy (stand-alone novel)
The Regency Adventures of Jemima Sudbury series:
The Mystery of the Missing Cufflinks
(Book 2 – releasing in 2016)
For my nana,
with much love
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
EPILOGUE
Historical Note
Thanks for Reading!
About the Author
CHAPTER ONE
September 1934
She tucked a piece of gold behind her ear, nervously twisting the whisper-thin strands from the root to the tip. Her hands – blue veins rivering through the translucent flesh – shook so badly. She held them out from her body, willing them to stop trembling, entreating, pleading with them. But they wouldn’t stop shaking, acting as independent entities, outside of Grace’s control.
Desperate now, she clasped them together tighter than the knot that tethered the family cow to its post in the barn. Her knuckles turned white from the pressure. The blood began to hammer through her chest, and she tried to remind herself to breathe…
But breathing was the last thing she really was worried about at the moment.
It’s now or never, Grace, she reminded herself. She tasted blood and realized that she’d clenched her jaw so hard that she’d bit the inside of her mouth without meaning to. Hastily, she ran her tongue over her teeth, just in case.
The auditorium had emptied of other students, like a lunchbox after noon. Its vast ceiling domed over the rows and rows of seats, their wood polished by so many years of parents and students sliding around on the surfaces. In Memory of Pauline Durferts: 1912 proclaimed the gold plaque above the stage’s proscenium arch. Grace couldn’t see it in the dim light – Mr. Kinner only had a lamp on now – but she’d read it every time there had been a school assembly last year.
What would it be like, Grace often had wondered, to have a school auditorium named in your honor? She knew that she would probably never experience that, but wasn’t that what secret dreams were for? Grace lived in awe of Pauline Durferts who had the auditorium named after her. Though she wished poor deceased Pauline might have had a more elegant name. Durferts Memorial Auditorium didn’t swing off the tongue very prettily… nor did it look so great on the playbills. Grace shrugged. I suppose, if you have the money to give an auditorium to the high school, it doesn’t matter what your last name sounds like.
She moved down the aisle, silently making her way up to Mr. Kinner. Beneath her blue cardigan, worn so threadbare that she could see her blouse through it in the light, Grace felt her heart clatter loudly. For a moment, she thought that the teacher might hear it. But Mr. Kinner sat with his head turned away from her, seemingly oblivious to Grace’s obnoxious heartbeats as she approached him.
Flop. Grace froze in the aisle. Her eyes darted toward Mr. Kinner. He hadn’t heard; his head still bent over his papers, the piano lamp sending up a glow, illuminating the man like a candle in the darkness. Relieved, Grace crouched down to examine her shoe.
Where’s that elastic? Grace gritted her teeth and felt about in the darkness. Her fingers came into contact with several sticky substances on the worn floor, including a chunk of old bubblegum. She bit back her disgust and kept inching her way around in circles. Where is that elastic? Finally, Grace’s fingers touched the rubbery strand. She gave a sigh of relief and scooped it up.
But the elastic band had broken. Not merely fallen off, but totally snapped from where she’d put it to hold her flopping sole on - and to take away some of the disgrace her shoes brought her. The hollow agony of her situation nibbled away at Grace’s shaky confidence. She couldn’t face Mr. Kinner with such an obviously-broken shoe. She couldn’t stand to see the derision or, worse, pity smooth over his handsome college-graduate features as he took in not only her dingy plaid skirt, stockingless legs, and scrappy cardigan but also her flopping shoes. As she’d dressed this morning, she’d hoped against hope that the rubber band might mask the fact that her footwear was so… used up. But it hadn’t worked after all.
In the dark, cold auditorium, Grace let one tear press its way past her iron reserve. Then she gathered up her broken dreams, folded them neatly in the drawers of her memory, and turned the key. She silently rose to her feet and turned to leave the assembly room by the same door through which she’d entered.
Flop. Flop. Grace froze again. Her shoe was giving her away! Perhaps Mr. Kinner hadn’t heard. Perhaps he had immersed himself too entirely in his work to pay any mind to some miscellaneous flop…
“Is someone here?” The deep voice, friendly though it was, made Grace nearly choke. She heard the creak of the piano bench and knew that Mr. Kinner had twisted around to look out into the auditorium’s blackness. “Hello?”
Grace forced herself to turn. She had thought that her nerves were bad before she’d broken the shoe’s rubber band. Now she thought she might really, truly faint. “It’s just me, sir,” she squeezed out. Her hands went numb. “But I’m going now.”
She turned and made it almost to the heavy double exit doors b
efore Mr. Kinner’s voice rang out again, cheerfully asking about the shocking thing Grace had actually come here to do:
“Did you want to sign up for something?”
She swallowed and faced him again. My, but the room seemed to have grown every minute she’d been there. She opened her mouth but not a syllable could find its way to her dry tongue, past her stiff teeth. There was nothing for it. She moved down the aisle clumsily, trying to prevent the flop-flopping of her shoe. When she finally reached the piano, Mr. Kinner sat sifting through the stack of papers before him. He smiled up at her. “Grace Picoletti, right?” She nodded and tasted blood in her mouth again. Consciously, she forced her teeth to relax their grip on the inside of her cheek.
“I have the sign-up forms here. Band? No, you don’t play an instrument, do you? Theatre?”
He looked up at Grace, who shook her head violently, drawing a smile from him again. “No? What, then?”
Grace swallowed down the lump that felt like cancer in her throat. “Chorus,” she managed to breathe out finally, but Mr. Kinner just looked confused.
He hadn’t heard. She would have to try again. “Chorus,” she forced her voice box to grind out. There, it was done. She felt the sweat cool on her forehead and looked numbly down at her defunct saddle shoes.
“Chorus? Oh, well, what part do you sing?”
Startled, Grace gaped up at him. What did he mean? She had no idea of singing a part; she only wanted to be in the chorus, standing as far to the back row as possible. “I… I don’t know,” she finally stuttered, sure that she looked as foolish as she felt.
Mr. Kinner smiled like he’d been eating molasses cookies, and Grace – in the midst of feeling embarrassed and awkward – found her heart skipping beats. He flipped through the music piled on the piano, selected a single sheet, and set it before him. “Well,” he said, eyes on Grace, “do you know America the Beautiful?”
Grace nodded. Everyone knew that.
“How about if I play it, and you try to sing along? Just so we can see what your range is.” He poised his long fingers expertly over the ivory keys and looked up at her, waiting for her answer.
Grace froze. Sing? In front of Mr. Kinner? Alone, without any other voices to drown hers out?
“Here, I’ll get you started.” Mr. Kinner tapped his foot a few times and his fingers began to run lightly over the keys, with the same kind of joy she saw her Mama feel when…
But now he was singing in that lovely caramel voice, and he expected her to follow suit! She opened her thin lips, but the notes would not emerge. Mr. Kinner looked over at her encouragingly after the first verse, and Grace tried valiantly once more.
This time, she managed a half-whisper, half-croak for the first few words. Mr. Kinner smiled – Was he making sport or did he like how she sang? Grace tried a few more lines, and Mr. Kinner’s lips spread into a wide half-moon as he dropped his hands from the piano and onto his knees. “That was excellent, Grace!” he exclaimed before turning back to the piano, his shining eyes reflecting in the instrument’s well-polished surface. Grace turned the color of wild strawberries, confused at the mixture of embarrassment and overpowering pleasure she felt at his compliments.
“I think I’ll start you on soprano and go from there. Practice is every Friday after school.” Mr. Kinner glanced at his pocket-watch, and the bench squeaked as he rose to his feet with a smile. “I’ve got to get going now, but you just get this permission slip signed by your parents.” He handed her a sheet of mimeographed paper from one of the piles on top of the upright.
Still returning to earth, Grace nearly dropped the permission slip. She clutched at it with her sweaty fingertips. “Thank you,” she breathed.
“You’re welcome,” he returned, grabbing his briefcase from beneath the piano. He clicked off the piano light, and darkness settled into the room, leaving only the light from the partially-open door. “Careful as you exit,” he cautioned.
Grace nodded mutely, backing up, holding onto the permission slip for dear life, not paying mind to the flop of her shoe. And of course, that did it. With the sickening knowledge that she was too far gone to do anything about it, Grace stumbled backward in the aisle, clutching helplessly at the empty air. She landed flat on her back, gasping for breath, staring up at the far-off ceiling, desperately pulling her pleated skirt down from where it bunched at her waist.
Before she could regain any composure, though, Mr. Kinner knelt at her side, concern written over his smoothly-shaven face. “Whoa, there. Are you alright?” he asked, hand to her shoulder.
Grace struggled to sit up, and he helped her, holding her elbow gently. She nodded. “I’m… I’m… o-okay,” she stammered and scrambled to stand, straightening her skirt and blouse. Her cheek stung where she had hit it on one of the wooden seats, but that was nothing – nothing – to the excruciating shame she felt as Mr. Kinner’s gaze landed on her shoe. He said nothing, but she saw the surprise, then understanding flood his eyes in the two seconds that he spent looking downwards.
She couldn’t bear it. Grace turned and ran. She would not wait to see the pity that surely would spring fresh on Mr. Kinner’s countenance, just as it had emerged on every teacher’s face for the past several years of her schooling when they began to learn where she came from, what went into the making of a girl named Grace Picoletti.
CHAPTER TWO
Glancing at the sinking sun, Grace quickened her already-fast walk to a trot. She held her schoolbooks tightly against her, as though they formed a breastplate, protecting her against the chill wind that shot through the late September maple trees. Her shoe flop-flopped with every step; she’d no other elastic band to hold the sole to the rest of the shoe.
Why did I even bother? she asked herself through the burning tears which she wouldn’t let herself weep. So stupid, Grace… You’re always so stupid. She could hear her brother Cliff jeering that at her, as he always did when she spilled the milk bucket or didn’t get the mashed potatoes creamy enough or tripped on the stairs. He’d said it so often that Grace nearly believed it. Did believe it, sometimes.
But every now and then, a spark of rebellion rose within her, rebellion against Cliff and against her second-grade teacher who’d proclaimed her a dunce and against her mother and against everyone who said it in their minds if not in their words: Grace Picoletti will never amount to anything. She’s meant for no more than her mother was… When the rebellious spark came into her heart, the hope that maybe, just maybe, everyone else was wrong, that maybe Grace Picoletti could be a great singer, maybe she would wear fine pearls and dine at fancy hotels, maybe handsome and educated men like Mr. Kinner would fall hopelessly in love with her – well, when that hope came in full force, flooding her bones, filling her spirit, it seemed to hold out the wings that would take her far-far-far from this wretched place in which she lived, from this wretched family of which she had to be a part.
Grace kicked the soda-pop bottle that some kid with pocket-money had left lying on the sidewalk. No matter how hard she tried, though, she couldn’t seem to get the wings to fit, to give her the flight they promised.
Even as the thoughts of escape thrust themselves through her mind, Grace quickened her pace and entered the upper-middle-class part of Chetham. Usually, she liked to stroll through this neighborhood. Its nicely-designed houses smiled their welcome through freshly-updated paint jobs. Many of the plots included manicured lawns, shimmering bright green in the slant of Indian-summer light, and well-tended gardens.
Involuntarily it seemed, her steps slowed as her eyes felt the lure of a certain two-story wooden house rising up near the sidewalk. It was inconspicuous compared to some of the others in this neighborhood, with little distinction and fewer updates. But one thing compelled her eyes every day toward this particular white house, and today was no exception: Glorious red flowers bloomed from a dozen baskets hanging from the porch’s eves, their rich color an exquisitely sharp contrast to the white columns.
This be
auty alone brought an unwonted grin to Grace’s lips each day, but today she accepted an additional pleasure: The murmured notes of a piano sounded from the open window above the porch. Grace didn’t recognize the tune, but she felt certain the pianist must be the lovely dark-haired woman whom she had sometimes seen tending the red-flowered plants.
With a start, Grace came out of her reverie. She turned her feet away from the main street of the fast-growing suburb and toward the bustle of trees growing up the steep hill on her left. Tired though she was, Grace didn’t slacken her pace as she ducked into the wooded area, moving along the path the Picoletti children had created over the years. The shortcut would lead right up behind the barn. With any luck and quick work on Grace’s part, Mama would never realize Grace had stayed late at school. Dawdling after school would displease Mama to no end; Grace knew this from the very few times she had dared to do it.
She ducked under the low-hanging branch of a pine tree and came into the clearing behind the small weathered barn. If Papa didn’t get around to painting it soon, its exterior would match the gray winter landscape just around the season’s corner. Beyond the barn, Papa’s large brick house stood, a testament to his hard work and cunning in the Chetham, Rhode Island, community. A pity there wasn’t more food in the large cupboards within that house. But there were other things more important to Papa than whether or not his family ate.
About to pull open the door, Grace paused when she heard voices inside the barn. Odd. She was the only one of the Picoletti children who had barn chores before supper. Unless Mama had heard Bessie’s lowing and sent out one of Grace’s sisters… but it sounded like a conversation going on in there. Grace listened, ear to the door, holding her breath.
“Let go of me, you whack! What do you think you’re doing?” Grace knew that voice; it was one of her two older twin sisters, Louisa. That slang talk was Lou’s, too.
The Fragrance of Geraniums (A Time of Grace Book 1) Page 1