Remembrance

by Spaeth, Janet

  Planning ahead? Professor Barkley should try living in this house.

  The lesson also included the admonition to read the Good Book daily and to commit a Bible verse to memory each day.

  Silas’s eyes threatened to shut before he could finish the day’s directive, but he forced himself to read on. The recommended verse for him to learn was John 8:32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

  Easy. Easy to memorize, easy to understand.

  He ran through his evening prayer and slid under the covers.

  The truth. It was easy. . .wasn’t it?

  Four

  Eliza tucked the last strand of hair into the bun coiled at the nape of her neck. Trying to make it stay was a losing battle, but if she didn’t turn too quickly, and if she was careful removing her knit scarf, the lock might stay in place.

  As if to taunt her, the wayward strand immediately slid out, but before she could do battle with it again, someone knocked on her door. She abandoned the tussle with her hair and opened the door.

  Mrs. Adams stood there, her arms crossed over her calicoed chest. “Silas Collier is downstairs. He said he’ll walk with you over to the church.”

  “Good. Thank you for letting me know. I’ll be right down.” Eliza reached for her coat, but Mrs. Adams didn’t move. Obviously she had more to say. Eliza suppressed a smile. Mrs. Adams always had more to say.

  “He didn’t tell me, but I heard at the market this morning that you have volunteered to help the Robbins family out.” The crusty demeanor softened. “Thank you.”

  Then the grumpy bearing was right back in place. “Don’t forget. Dinner is at noon. Prompt. I don’t hold the food for anybody.”

  “Thank you so much, I will remember.”

  “You’ve got a bit of hair that’s gone awry,” Mrs. Adams commented, as if the lock had itself violated one of her many rules. Perhaps reassuring herself that her own steely gray hair was safely confined within the limits of the braided circle at the nape of her neck, she ran her hand over the sides of the constrained hair. She smiled, maybe a bit smugly, Eliza thought, as her fingers found no stray tresses.

  Eliza tucked the errant strand back into place and snatched up her coat and her sewing bag. “Thank you, Mrs. Adams. I don’t know if I’ll be back for dinner at noon or not. Silas and I are meeting Reverend Tupper in the church first.” She paused. Should she ask? “I’m not quite sure what to expect when I get over to the Robbins’s home.”

  “Expect a mess,” the woman said succinctly. “The family needs help.”

  Mrs. Adams, Eliza had already found out, was more than willing to share what she knew. Perhaps she could give her some more information about what to expect at the Robbins’s house.

  “How long has Mrs. Robbins been ill?” Eliza asked.

  “Several months, but when she fell ill, it was quick and terrible. Most of us didn’t expect her to survive, to tell you the truth. She was very close to death’s door.” Mrs. Adams shook her head sadly.

  Memories of her own mother’s illness made Eliza’s stomach clench. “But Mrs. Robbins is getting better, isn’t she?”

  Mrs. Adams didn’t answer immediately, as if considering her answer. “She’s alive,” she said at last. “She’s alive.”

  They left the room, and Eliza followed Mrs. Adams’s heavy tread down the stairs.

  “Silas is in the parlor,” Mrs. Adams said, “waiting for you.”

  He rose when she entered the parlor, Mrs. Adams trailing closely behind her. “Just a minute.” The older woman suddenly turned and bustled out of the room.

  “What was that about?” Eliza asked as Silas helped her into her coat. “That woman has more surprises than Christmas.”

  “I have no idea,” he answered.

  Mrs. Adams returned quickly, a basket in her hands. It was covered with a large white napkin, neatly tucked in around the edges. She held it out to Silas. “Here. It should feed the lot of you.”

  As he took it from her, the warm aroma of baked turkey arose from it. “Mrs. Adams, you want me to take this with me?” he asked.

  “Why else would I have given it to you?” she answered with a sniff. “It certainly seems obvious that your work crew would get a lot more done, and the Robbins family might have a decent meal, if you ate this over there.”

  “This is what you were going to serve for dinner today, isn’t it?” Eliza asked, finally catching on to what Mrs. Adams had done. “What a wonderfully sweet thing to do!”

  “Sweet? Well.” Mrs. Adams seemed taken aback, as if no one had called her sweet in a long time—if ever. “I can make another dinner. Not turkey, mind you, but I can put together a nice potato and ham hot dish in its place. Mrs. Mason and I will enjoy that just as much.”

  “The family will certainly enjoy this. Thank you, Mrs. Adams,” Silas said. “Eliza, we need to go.”

  The temperature had dropped overnight, and the wind had picked up. Conversation was impossible as Eliza tucked her chin deep inside her knitted scarf, covering as much of her face as she could with it. The wind was bitter, tugging at her skirts until they whipped around her ankles tightly.

  The warmth of the church was welcome. Reverend Tupper had a small fire burning in the iron stove at the front of the church, and she held her hands out toward the flames.

  “Thank you for sharing your talents with the family,” he said to Eliza, who could only chatter wordlessly in response, her face was so frozen. “The Robbins house is not far away, but I’ll give you a chance to thaw out a bit first. Silas, might I borrow you for a moment? I’d like you to look at the back window. . . .”

  Their voices grew fainter as they walked away from her. Eliza huddled near the stove, letting the heat radiate into her body. It wasn’t far to walk, but the wind was brutal, making every foot seem like a mile.

  She looked around the church. When she’d lived here, the church had been smaller, not much larger than some of the original houses the settlers built. The community added onto it, even expanding the sanctuary. She ran her hand over the altar, undoubtedly crafted by one of townsmen, perhaps Edward or Silas even. It was smooth and polished, and ornamented with an iron cross centered on a white cloth, the edges touched with lace.

  In a low murmur from the back of the church, she could hear the men’s voices.

  What an odd journey this had been. Within a week, she abandoned the life she’d been building—she’d thought she’d been building, she corrected herself—and had come back, full circle, to where she began.

  It surprised her at first that no one seemed to recognize her name—no one except Mrs. Adams, of course—but she’d already realized that many people came to and left Remembrance, not having found the financial relief they’d been expecting here. Her family had been one in a steady stream of temporary residents.

  In her memory, Remembrance staged itself as larger and grander, but in retrospect, she had to admit that nostalgia had put a gleam on the little town that was her own creation. It was, simply, the place she had been happiest.

  Here her mother had been well, here her father had laughed, here she had played in the grass of the prairie.

  But it had all been fleeting. When they left, they took everything. Her father emptied the house of its furniture and its quilts and its pictures, and sold it and the parcel of land it sat on to the next man ready to believe the promises of this new town in the north of the state. Now the woods surrounding it had become fields, and in time, the fields would become towns, more towns like Remembrance. Some would survive. Some wouldn’t.

  From the corner where the men spoke, she heard laughter. It was like music. There hadn’t been much laughter with Blaine Loring. He was an intense man. It was, as he told her patiently one day, how he became wealthy. His single-focus approach to whatever he was doing meant that his project succeeded, but it also meant that there were casualties along the way. But he never concerned himself with that.

  If she had paid attention to his
words then, she might have spared herself becoming one of those very casualties.

  Silas, on the other hand, had a genteel side. Even though she had just met him, when she was with him she felt different. She sought for a word to describe it but came up blank. The closest she came was “equal.” Blaine kept her on edge, worried that he might find something to disapprove of in her style, her manner, her words. She didn’t feel that way with Silas.

  He was—a friend. That was it. And it was wonderful. She needed friends.

  He and Reverend Tupper called to her. It was time to bundle up again and go to the Robbins’s home.

  Her scarf fell off, and as she replaced it over her head, she thought of what her hair must look like—probably more was out of the bun than in it at this point. She should just give up and let it go wherever it wanted. It would anyway.

  They left the church, and Eliza followed the two men. The weather wasn’t improving, she thought as they struggled through the pillow drifts that crisscrossed the road, little fingers of snow that would, with any encouragement from the elements, soon become full-blown snowdrifts. But she’d said she’d help, and she wouldn’t go back on her word.

  Soon they slowed in front of the white house Paul had pointed out. “It’s seen better days,” Silas said charitably.

  In fact, the steps were slanted, one shutter swung free, and the paint was peeling badly. “Those we’ll take care of when spring comes,” Reverend Tupper said. “Let’s go inside and see what we can do today.”

  The inside of the house was in better shape. Paul ran to meet them and take their coats, and she heard Edward say to him, “Say, I hear that you were quite observant at the house yesterday. Good job, Paul. I’m proud of you.”

  Once the coats were off and hung on the coat rack, the children clustered around Silas and peered into the basket containing the turkey dinner, their shouts of glee almost drowning out Jack Robbins’s greeting.

  “Children,” he said, clapping his hands and getting his offspring’s attention, “I think we should all introduce ourselves to Miss Davis. I’ll start. Miss Davis, I’m Jack Robbins. I think we knew each other a long time ago. It’s good to have you back in Remembrance.”

  The children immediately formed a line, and the oldest boy stepped forward. “I’m Luke. I’m ten.”

  “You know me. I’m Paul and this is my twin brother Peter, and he’s six.” The children snickered, and Paul flushed. “We’re both six.”

  “He’s silly,” said the next to the last child. “I’m Brian, and I’m four, and this is my brother Mark. He’s two.”

  A girl with shy eyes was last. “I’m Analia. I’m five.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you all,” Eliza said, a bit surprised at how much she meant it. She hadn’t been around children much, but this group had already shown itself to be special. The few times she had needed to work with children nearby, they hadn’t been this well behaved at all.

  Within minutes, the turkey was put aside for dinner, safely out of the reach of eager little hands.

  “Would you like to meet my wife?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, I certainly would,” Eliza responded. She tried to tuck her hair back into place, but as usual, it wouldn’t stay.

  Mary Robbins was a slight thing, very pale and thin, and almost lost in the bedcovers which were tousled and twisted.

  She reached a gaunt hand to Eliza. “I’m glad to meet you,” she said, her voice as soft and faint as a whisper. “I understand you’re a dressmaker and that you’ve come to help my children not look so much like ragamuffins.” She coughed and sank back onto the pillow as if the short conversation exhausted her.

  “It’s my pleasure. I enjoy sewing. There’s something relaxing about it.”

  Mary’s hands plucked uselessly at a blanket that had slipped down. “Would you like me to fix your bedding?” Eliza asked.

  The ill woman nodded. “Please.”

  Eliza straightened the blankets and fluffed the pillows. “There. Now I’d better see what’s awaiting me in the mending basket. It’s been a delight to meet you.”

  Mary smiled. “God bless you, Miss Davis.”

  Eliza touched the woman’s hand. “Please, call me Eliza, and I am already blessed.”

  Reverend Tupper and Jack came into the room, and Eliza left to begin on the sewing.

  She and Silas soon settled themselves by the fire. Eliza had a basket of shirts that needed to be mended or cut down, and she studied them carefully, evaluating each one.

  He was repairing some of the boys’ boots. “I’ve never done this before, but it’s not horribly difficult,” he told her as he squinted at the instep of one. “With six children, and five of them boys, I guess boots need to have a longer life than usual.”

  “Strikes me that it’s a lot like basic sewing, isn’t it?” She flexed her fingers. The cold had made them clumsy at first, but as they warmed up, the feeling had returned. She turned the red plaid shirt to see if there was any way to salvage it for one more wearer.

  “If there’s more to it than that, I’m lost,” he admitted. “But so far it’s been a simple matter of thick thread, a stout needle, and a load of patience.”

  “That’s why I sew.” She took up her shears and cut the shirt smaller. “This’ll have to be redone. It’s torn along the seams. I think this may be the last go-round for this shirt. It’s so thin that it’s almost transparent. But yes, I do like to sew because I’m so impatient.”

  He laid the shoe down and stared at her, the flames of the fire reflecting in his pale brown eyes. “That seems odd. Wouldn’t it be the other way around? I’d think you’d have to be a patient person to sew.”

  Eliza laughed. “I wish it were so! I’m very impatient with many things, but sewing makes me slow down, and it gives me time to think.”

  “What do you think about?”

  “Of course I think about the project. I love to watch the flat material become a dress or a shirt or a pair of trousers. There’s such a sense of success about it when it’s going well. And when it isn’t going well, of course I get frustrated, but I view it like a puzzle, and I can almost always resolve it. I also pray a lot when I sew.”

  “Really?” He cut the thread he was using and tested the seam. “Good. It’ll hold.”

  “On the long stretches, where I’m finishing a seam or hemming a skirt, I talk to God a lot. The even stitching is the perfect backdrop for prayer. Don’t you pray while you work? Or maybe that’s not a good idea. You might fall off a ladder.”

  “And break my precious limb,” he finished for her. They both laughed. “I usually pray in the morning and at night before I go to bed, and I say grace before I eat, of course. I also pray during the course of the day, mainly when I have a challenge or I want to take up a cause with God. I must sound like God’s neediest child sometimes!”

  She spread the pieces of the now cut-up shirt out on the table in front of her. “I’ll be praying that this comes together all right. Well, with five boys in the family, it ought to fit one of them.”

  Jack called them in to eat. The turkey that Mrs. Adams had sent over was carved, and a bowl of potatoes and gravy was placed next to a platter of corn.

  The children rushed in, each taking what was clearly their designated spot at the table, from the oldest to the youngest.

  “Please, have a seat,” Jack said. “I’ve got two extra chairs here.”

  “What about Mary? And Reverend Tupper?” Eliza asked.

  Jack’s face softened. “I always feed Mary first. She ate fairly well today, thanks to this delicious food. The Reverend has gone on to his home, so it’s just us.”

  Silas pulled out a chair for her, and then sat on her left. Analia was on her right.

  “Time for grace,” Paul said. “Hold Mr. Collier’s hand, Miss Davis. That’s how we pray, holding hands.”

  Peter snickered.

  “Not like that, silly,” interjected Brian. “They’re praying hands, not I-love-you hands.” />
  Silas coughed, and Eliza looked down to hide her smile. She took Analia’s hand first and then reached for Silas’s. Analia’s were warm and sticky, and Silas’s were dry and firm.

  “Children, hush,” Jack said. “Silas, would you say our blessing?”

  “Dearest Lord, we thank You for Your gifts, for food, for friendship, for eternal life. May we always keep you close. Amen.”

  “That was sure short,” Paul said. “Reverend Tupper goes on so long the meat gets cold.”

  The other children shushed him, and the dishes were passed from one to another.

  The dinner was excellent and the children well behaved, but Eliza was aware of Silas next to her throughout the meal. Not I-love-you hands, indeed!

  They spent the rest of the day working together quietly, until at last they decided to quit. Reverend Tupper had already gone back to the church, so they walked together back to the boardinghouse. The sun had set, and the wind had died down. The snow had ended, but a light crystalline shimmer made the air sparkle in the moonlight.

  Fairy dust, her mother had called it, and it did look as magical as that. This was the backdrop of beautiful dreams, in which anything could happen.

  “I love this,” she said, sweeping her hand in front of her. “I’m sure there’s some scientific name for the phenomenon—”

  He began to interrupt, but she put a gloved hand over his lips. “I don’t want to know. It’s so beautiful, these tiny speckles of ice floating in the air.”

  They walked in silence to the boardinghouse, watching the interplay of the crystals and the moonlight. At last, as they reached the door, Eliza paused, reluctant to let the magic end.

  “Eliza—” Silas began, but whatever he was about to say was lost as the door flew open and Hyacinth and Edward burst out.

  “We’re getting married!” Hyacinth sang. “We’ve decided that we like each other as much in person as we did in letters, so we’re going to get married as soon as Edward heals.”