If he could convince Estelle to marry him, his problems would be over. Well, some of his problems. Actually, marriage often presented a new set of problems. Despite his prayers for God’s leading, he hesitated when it came to proposing. Maybe God had been trying to show him that such a union would never work. Or maybe he feared rejection. Estelle might fix her keen gaze on him and question his sanity. His touch might fill her with loathing. With a groan, he crossed his arms and laid his head on his desk.
Oh, to be a cat.
“Reverend Nelson?” He lifted his head and turned, blinking at the embodiment of his dream. “I saw the lamplight. Did you spend the night here?” Estelle’s gaze flickered across his manuscript.
He rubbed his stiff neck and rolled his head and shoulders. “No, I rose early to work. I never heard you drive up.”
“It’s windy today. Paul says a storm may be coming.” When she approached to open the curtains and let in morning light, her full skirts brushed his left arm. “It’s cold in here. I built up the fire in the stove. You’d better come into the kitchen until the house warms up. I’ll make pancakes if you like, or oatmeal.”
“Pancakes, please. And tea, as long as you drink it with me.” He followed her to the kitchen. Belle greeted him, winding around his feet. He pulled a chair near the stove, let Belle hop into his lap, and watched Estelle work. Her every movement seemed to him graceful and efficient. Like poetry or music.
While whipping eggs for pancake batter, Estelle glanced at him. “You’re quiet this morning. Did you accomplish much work?”
“No. I was thinking about you.”
For an instant, her spoon froze in place; then slowly, she began to stir again. After greasing the griddle, she poured four small circles of batter. “Since the book is nearly complete, I imagine my employment here will soon end.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She swallowed hard. Once she opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. “I don’t understand.”
He wanted to stand up, turn her to face him, and declare his love—but he knew better. Like Belle, she would struggle and growl and resent his advances.
“You have become part of my life. Part of me. I can’t imagine a future without you here in my home every day.” He rubbed the back of his neck again. “If I have your consent, I want to ask your brother for permission to court you.”
She looked like a marble statue: Woman with Spatula.
“The pancakes are burning.”
Breath burst from her, and she flipped the cakes. “But why?” He almost made a quip about things burning when they cook too long but thought better of it. “I think you’re a wonderful woman, Estelle.” She sucked in a breath and closed her eyes.
Encouraged, he elaborated. “You are accomplished and creative and thoughtful. Out of the kindness of your heart, you have made my house back into a home, so much so that I hate to leave whenever you’re here. You’ve trained Mary Bilge into a decent housekeeper, a miracle in itself. Your list of piano students lengthens daily. Without a word of complaint, you took a disastrous mass of scribbling and turned it into an organized manuscript, possibly worthy of publication.”
She snapped back into motion, rescued the pancakes, and poured a new batch, scraping out the bowl. Quickly she buttered the cakes and sprinkled them with brown sugar. “Eat them while they’re hot.”
“Thank you.” He bowed his head, adding a plea for wisdom.
When he opened his eyes and began to eat, she was staring at the griddle. “You don’t really know me.”
He finished chewing a bite and swallowed. “I want to know you better. Everything I see, I like. Is there hope for me, Estelle?”
She turned the pancakes. “I need time to think.”
“Do you want to take the rest of today off?”
After a pause, she nodded. “I’ll clean the kitchen first.”
“When you’re ready, I’ll hitch Pepper.”
Frank attempted to work on his manuscript, but concentration was impossible. He needed to be with Estelle, needed to know her thoughts. At last he gave up, saddled Powder, and rode to the Trumans’ farm. Susan greeted him at the door, and Paul came from the barn. “What brings you out this blustery day, Frank?” he asked, wiping axle grease from his hands with a rag.
“Come inside out of the cold,” Susan said.
Frank stepped into the entry. “I’m looking for Estelle.”
Susan closed the door behind Paul and took Frank’s hat and scarf. “She came home for a short time and left again. I thought she must have forgotten something; she never said a word.”
“Did she take anything with her?” Fear shortened Frank’s breath.
“I’ll go look,” Susan offered, then hurried upstairs.
“You might as well tell us what happened. I can guess, but it’s easier to ask.” Paul led him toward the kitchen, where Eliza left her warm bed by the stove and came wagging to greet him.
After patting the dog, Frank slumped into a kitchen chair and accepted a cup of coffee. “This morning I told her I planned to ask your permission to court her. She said she needed time to think, so I gave her the rest of the day off.”
Paul set his own cup down and sat across from Frank. “You don’t want to marry her, Frank. Trust me on this one.”
Susan bustled in. “No, no, don’t bother getting up; I’ll join you in a moment. Estelle’s trunk is open, and it looks as if she took something from inside, but her clothing and bags are all here. What happened, Frank? Did you propose to her? I know you’re in love with her. I think everyone in town knows.”
Heat flowed up his neck in a wave.
“Estelle is a good enough person, I guess,” Paul said, “but she would make a poor choice of wife. She closed her heart to love twenty years ago.”
“What happened then?” Frank asked.
Paul sipped his coffee and grimaced. “She was engaged to a ministerial student by the name of John Forster. A sober fellow with social aspirations. When the war started, he joined up as chaplain. Made it through the war unscathed, then died of a fever before he could return home. Estelle was furious with God.”
Frank bowed his head. “Understandable.”
“Yes, but she never got over it. She turned bitter and heartless. When I brought my wife home to meet the family, my only sister rejected her simply because she had worked as a maid.”
Susan shook her head. “Now that’s not entirely true, Paul. Estelle stood with her parents in public, but before we left, she secretly gave me that heirloom pin of your grandmother’s. I think she felt bad about the way your parents behaved, but who could stand up against your father? He terrified me. I can’t blame her for bowing to his will.”
Paul huffed. “You’re too forgiving.”
“Can anyone be too forgiving?” Frank asked, turning his cup between his hands.
“Paul, tell about when you wrote to your parents,” Susan said.
He sighed deeply. “Around two years ago, you preached a series of sermons on forgiveness, Frank. I wrote to my parents, trying to restore the relationship. Estelle wrote back to tell me that our father had died soon after Susan and I moved away, leaving them penniless. Estelle had been working at a law office all those years to support our mother and, for a time, our great-aunt. Mother never answered my letter.”
“And you didn’t contact Estelle again until she wrote to inform you of your mother’s death,” Susan said.
“Which was when Paul came to me,” Frank finished the tale, “and asked if I would hire her as secretary. She’s had a lonely, disappointing life from the sound of it.”
“True, but she didn’t have to freeze into herself the way she did,” Paul said. “Many people endure heartbreak and disappointment without becoming icebergs. As a child, Estelle was lively, full of mischief, loving toward me. She wept when I went off to war, and she wrote to me faithfully. I told her about my new wife in my letters, and she seemed excited. And then to have her rej
ect us so coldly …” Paul shook his head. “She’s worse now than ever.”
“I think she is afraid to love,” Susan said.
“I think she’s angry at God,” Paul insisted.
“I think I need to find out the truth from her,” Frank decided. “Thanks for the coffee. I’ll hunt for her around town. I have an idea where she is.”
Chapter 5
Frank let Powder gallop toward the church. Gray clouds scudded across the vast sky. With the fields harvested, a man could see for miles. A raucous flock of crows passed overhead and faded into the distance. Wind tugged at Frank’s hat, trying to rip it from his head.
The church’s white steeple beckoned as if promising refuge. As Frank expected, Pepper dozed in the shed out back, still hitched to the dogcart. When the wind shifted, tempestuous music filled the air.
Frank opened the church doors and slipped inside. The music increased in volume again when he opened the sanctuary door. Estelle sat at the piano, her sheet music lit by tapers in the instrument’s folding candle racks. Her strong hands flew over the keys. Frank thought he recognized Beethoven, a violent piece. Its intensity covered his footsteps until he could slide into a seat four rows behind her. When the song ended, she turned a few pages and played a yearning sonata, then moved on to several complex and stirring works of art. After a pause, she performed a hauntingly romantic piece. The music flowing from her fingers brought tears to Frank’s eyes.
As the last notes faded away, she clenched her fists beneath her chin and hunched over.
“I’ve never heard anything more beautiful,” Frank said.
Estelle hit the keyboard with both palms as if to catch herself. Instantly she jerked her hands up to end the discordant jangle and glanced at Frank over her shoulder. “I didn’t hear you enter.” She checked the watch pinned to her shirtwaist, exclaimed softly, closed her book, and slid the felt keyboard cover into place. “How long have you been here?”
Frank rose and approached the piano. “Not long enough. Whatever you were playing there was powerful. Music for the soul.”
Estelle avoided his gaze. “Thank you.”
“I felt, while listening, that at last I was seeing and hearing the real Estelle.”
“Your wife played. Does it bother you to hear me play her piano?”
He rubbed one hand across the piano’s top, then brushed dust from his fingers. “Kirsten never played like you do. Her music was cheery and uncomplicated, a reflection of her personality. Your music is rich and passionate, a reflection of your soul.”
With shaking hands, Estelle began to gather up her music. “That was Schubert, not me.”
He lowered his voice. “Paul and Susan told me about John Forster’s untimely death. Paul believes you’re angry with God. Susan believes you’re afraid to love. I wonder if both are correct.”
She paused. “If they are, my feelings are justified.”
“Tell me.”
Her oblique gaze pierced him. “Why should I?”
“As I said this morning, I want to know you. And I think you need to talk. Anything you say is confidential; I will tell no one.”
She breathed hard for a few moments, staring at the keyboard. “John didn’t die in the war,” she said with quiet intensity. “God took him from me. Then my parents rejected Susan, so Paul went away hating me. Then my father died of a heart attack, leaving behind debts that consumed his entire fortune. For twenty years, I slaved in an office to support my mother and my great-aunt, who spent the remainder of their lives complaining about my insufficient provision and warning me never to trust a man.”
Frank could easily picture them, having encountered human leeches before. “Did your mother never work? I remember when Paul learned of your financial ruin—long after the event, I’m sorry to say. He told me how socially ambitious and dependent your mother was and wondered how you managed her.”
“Mother took to her bed years ago, though she was not truly ill until last winter. Doubtless you will think me a monster, but I have shed no tears since her passing. Her death came as a blessed release, as did Aunt Bridget’s demise ten years earlier. The last person I mourned was my father, the model husband and father, who betrayed us all by keeping a second family on the far side of town. The other woman made her claim after his death.”
Frank’s jaw dropped.
“I did not want to believe her assertions, but once she proved my father’s infidelity, I did right by my five half brothers and sisters. They are all grown men and women by now; at the time, they were helpless children.”
“Does Paul know any of this?”
“No. When it occurred, I was unaware of his location. He contacted us a few years ago. Mother refused to acknowledge him, so I wrote to him secretly.”
“He told me what happened when he brought Susan home with him after the war.”
“She had been a housemaid. Far too good for any of us Trumans, actually.” Estelle closed her eyes. “At the time, I thought it my duty to uphold my parents’ decision, but Paul will never forgive me. Oh, life is unpredictable and cruel!” Her voice broke.
“The people who should have loved and protected you failed you, Estelle.” Frank spoke softly. “I understand your anger and your bitterness. I’ve had a share of heartbreak in my life, but unlike you, I’ve also had people who loved me faithfully.”
“The only people who might have loved me, God took away.”
“That’s not entirely true.”
She glared at him. “Now I’m to hear the sermon about God’s faithful love.”
Frowning to conceal his hurt, he rubbed his beard. “I didn’t know I annoyed you so much.”
He heard her sigh. “I apologize. That accusation was unkind and unfair. Your Sunday sermons challenge my mind, as does your book, yet often when you preach, I hear only riddles and contradictions. ‘God’s plan of salvation is simple,’ you say, yet as I work on your manuscript, I am overwhelmed by the complexity of the Christian creed.”
“I thought you understood.”
Shaking her head, she watched her fingers fold pleats in her skirt. “Aunt Bridget told me that my salvation lay in religion and duty. I have done my best, but sometimes the loneliness is too much to bear.”
“Good works cannot regenerate your sinful spirit or mine. Our righteousness is as filthy rags in God’s sight. He must transform us from the inside out.”
“But what if He doesn’t?” The pain in Estelle’s expression tore at his heart. “I do believe that Jesus is God’s Son, sent to earth to die in my place, but my belief seems to make no difference. What if I’m not one of His chosen ones?”
Frank prayed for the right words. “Belief involves more than an intellectual acceptance of fact. It involves acknowledgment of your unworthy condition, surrender of the will, dying to self. If you come to Him, He will certainly not cast you out.”
Emotions flickered across her face—longing, defiance, resolve. “You say God is love and God is all-powerful. If He is both, how can there be sin, deceit, murder, and ugliness in this world? Why do innocent people suffer? Why doesn’t God allow everyone into heaven if He loves us all so much?”
“We’re all sinners. One evidence of God’s love is that He doesn’t simply give us what we deserve—eternal damnation. Instead, He offers everyone the opportunity to love and serve Him or to reject His gift of salvation.”
She nodded slowly.
Encouraged, he continued, “Each day of your life you choose between good and evil, as do the murderers and liars and adulterers of this world. Our choices affect the people around us, and the more those people love us, the more deeply they are affected. You have chosen a life of isolation rather than to risk the vulnerability that comes with love.” As soon as the words left his lips, he knew he’d made a mistake.
Shaking visibly, she leaped to her feet and poked her forefinger into his chest. “You have no right to judge me!”
He bowed his head. “It’s true. I have no right to ju
dge; only God has that right. For a man who makes his living with words, I’m bad at expressing my feelings. Because I care, I want you to share the abundant life God gives, but the choice is yours to make.”
She folded her arms across her chest and stared at the floor. “You ask me to risk everything by loving a God who has never yet shown Himself worthy of my faith.”
“The request for your faith comes from God, not from me. He said a Savior would come to earth, and He did; we celebrate that kept promise at Christmas. He said He would die for us, and He did; we commemorate that sacrifice on Good Friday. He said He would conquer death and rise again, and He did; we rejoice in that triumphant victory at Easter. You can trust Him to keep His promises, Estelle. He desires your love and trust enough to die for you.”
Estelle’s head jerked back. “I need to go home.”
Frank swallowed hasty words and bowed his head. “Yes, it grows late. I’ll follow you home.”
Outside, the wind knifed them with the chill of winter. Estelle clutched her shawl around herself and gasped. Frank closed the church doors. “You need more than a shawl in this wind. We can stop at the parsonage for blankets and coats. I think we might get snow overnight.”
He took Estelle’s hand and led her back to the shed where the horses waited. Without protest, she let him tie Powder up behind the dogcart, climb in beside her, and drive through the dark churchyard to the main road. Wind whipped trees and scattered leaves across the road.
“Hang on to me, if you want,” he offered, raising his voice above the wind. She immediately gripped his arm and buried her face against his shoulder. He grinned into the gale.
When Pepper stopped in front of the parsonage, Frank heard Estelle’s teeth chattering. “Come in for hot tea before I take you home.” He rubbed her unresisting fingers. “Your hands are like ice.”
“But it’s nearly dark,” she protested.
“Just for a moment.” He helped her from the cart. Within minutes, he was stoking the fire in the oven and filling the kettle. Seeing Estelle shiver, he hurried to find blankets.
Tracie Peterson, Tracey V. Bateman, Pamela Griffin, JoAnn A. Grote Page 54