by BJ Hoff
“And haven’t I heard that before from Kate?” His expression turned sly. “So, then, got yourself a lady friend, have you?”
Jonathan frowned at the abrupt change in subject. “What?”
Matthew made no reply but simply watched him, clearly waiting for some sort of response.
Then Jonathan remembered. “You mean Carolyn Ross? Oh, no—it’s nothing like that. We’re just…friends.”
“Ah, now. No need to be embarrassed. Kate and myself, we were pleased to see you with a lady companion for a change.”
“No, Matthew, really. You’ve got the wrong idea altogether. There’s nothing between Carolyn and me.”
If he only knew the “companion” I really want, he just might toss me out of his yard here and now.
Matthew looked disappointed. “Well, that’s too bad, man. I thought perhaps you’d finally found someone.”
If he only knew, Jonathan thought again.
And if he did know? Would it mean an end of their friendship? How would a man like Matthew MacAuley take to the idea of the town schoolteacher courting his daughter? Assuming Maggie would allow it, of course.
Jonathan didn’t like to think about the answer. And yet, depending on Maggie’s response to the question he intended to ask her this evening…if he didn’t lose his nerve…he might have to think about it. And sooner rather than later.
He was relieved when Maggie walked out, buttoning her coat. Everything else, for the moment at least, was forgotten.
Kate stepped out onto the porch just as Maggie and Jonathan drove away. She watched them for a moment, and then came out into the yard.
Matthew leaned his weight on the rake.
“Eva Grace told me Jonathan was here. Why didn’t you wake me?” she asked.
“I figured you needed the rest. Besides, Jonathan said not to. He came to visit with Eva Grace for a bit.”
“That was good of him. She’s always admired him so.” She yawned and shook her head a little. “Where are he and Maggie off to?”
“He asked her to go along with him to look in on those Lazlo children. They’re staying at Pastor Wallace’s place, you know.”
She nodded. “Poor things. What are they going to do about that father of theirs, do you think?”
“Hard telling. Jonathan’s more than a little troubled about that situation.”
Her gaze went to the pile of leaves he’d raked. “Matthew, why didn’t you leave that for Ray? He’ll be home soon.”
“It’s going to rain. He won’t be able to get to them for another day or more. Besides, I’m almost finished.”
“Are you sure we’ve done the right thing, letting him stay out at Jeff and Martha’s every weekend? You could use his help here.”
He shook his head. “This is good for him, Kate. I had my taste of farm life. I want the boy to have his. Indeed, I’m grateful to Jeff for asking.”
“But it makes that much more work for you. If you’d asked, I’m sure Maggie would have stayed home instead of going off with Jonathan. She’s always good to help out.”
Matthew saw Jonathan’s buggy turn off at the fork in the road.
“Matthew?”
He looked back to his wife. “Have you seen them together, Jonathan and our Maggie?”
Kate glanced toward the road and then back to him. “Of course I’ve seen them together. Why?”
“No, I mean, have you seen how they are when they’re together, the way they look at each other?”
She stared at him. “Maggie and Jonathan Stuart? What are you saying?”
Matthew thought perhaps he should have kept his silence, at least for now. He might be mistaken. He’d seen it for himself only today, after all.
“Matthew?”
Too late. She’d not be leaving it alone now. “He claims there’s nothing between him and that school secretary, you know. And I believe him. Especially after seeing the way he is with our girl.”
Her eyes widened. “Surely not—” She broke off. “Jonathan Stuart isn’t the kind of man to dally with a girl Maggie’s age.”
“Did I say anything about dallying, woman? The man is smitten with the girl, is what I meant. And furthermore, she’s in the same fix over him.”
Kate brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes boring into his. “Are you sure, Matthew?”
“Not entirely. But it’s what I’m thinking.”
“But Jonathan—he’s so much older than Maggie.” She paused. “How much, do you think?”
Matthew shrugged. “He was her schoolteacher after all. Hadn’t he just come to town when she started school?”
“Yes, but he was quite a young man at the time.”
Kate was obviously calculating things, that clever mind of hers no doubt breezing right by his own, which was usually the case.
“Well,” she finally said, “he’s certainly not too old to take a wife and have a family yet. And he is a fine-featured man.”
“Oh, is he now? I wouldn’t have thought a grandmother like yourself would be noticing a man’s features.”
She gave him a look. “I’m a very young grandmother, as it happens.”
“Now that’s the truth,” he said, his gaze going over her until her face turned red. “So, what then—are you saying you’d have no problem with it, if I’m right?” he challenged her.
“I don’t know whether I would or not,” she finally said. “But it’s hardly unusual for a young woman to marry a man several years her senior. We’ve both seen it done, and with a good enough outcome.”
“The lass is little more than a child.”
Kate drew back, looking at him as if he’d lost his wits entirely. “Maggie is twenty-four years old. When I was her age, I had two babes already.”
Matthew brought his chin up. “Not by an older man, you didn’t.”
She studied him for a moment. “That’s true. My man was still a green gorsoon who didn’t know enough to hold a babe right side up or dandy her on his knee without dropping her on her head.”
She was goading him, and he was enjoying it. Things had not been this light between them for a long time. “I wasn’t that bad.”
She smiled at him and put a hand on his arm. “No, you weren’t. And I haven’t had time yet to think about this business with our Maggie and Jonathan Stuart. But I will say that the girl has always been older than her years. And I can’t remember when she hasn’t had a good strong grip on herself. If you’re right about this, it just might be that the Lord in his wisdom has brought it about because it’s best for both of them.”
“You are saying you wouldn’t object.”
His wife never ceased to amaze him. Matthew had been expecting her to be riled. Instead she sounded like the voice of reason itself.
“I’m saying let’s not be jumping to any conclusions, but instead wait and see if you know what you’re talking about.”
Matthew frowned at her, which of course she ignored entirely. “Well, I believe I usually do.”
“Usually,” she said. “Not always. As for Jonathan and Maggie—well, he’s a good man, there’s that. The best there is, except for yourself.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Softening me up now, are you?”
“As if I could.”
“And we both know you can.”
She moved to take the rake from him, leaning it against the tree. “You’ve done enough for today. Come on inside now!” she ordered him. “You shouldn’t stay out here in this damp cold. It’ll only make your back worse. I’ll go and make us some fresh coffee.”
Matthew stood watching her as she breezed up the steps to the porch. With her straight back and slender waist she still looked like a young girl herself.
His mood threatened to sour. Heaven knew Kate deserved better than she’d gotten with him. He wasn’t much good for anything these days, thanks to the stubborn pain. Sometimes it was like a buzzard eating away at his bones. He was so weary most of the time it was all he could do to drag one foot after the other.
And when he took the medicine Woodbridge had given him, his mind seemed to turn to mush.
It wasn’t fair to Kate, not at all. But to save him, he didn’t know what to do about it.
He almost wished he had the nerve to take Jonathan up on his suggestion about seeing that woman doctor. If he thought there was the slightest chance…
He curled his lip. He wasn’t that bad off yet.
Deliberately he turned his thoughts away from himself and back to Maggie and Jonathan. Perhaps Kate was right about them. The girl had always seemed older, that was true enough. But she had always been headstrong and willful as well. Maybe the good Lord had, as Kate said, brought this about for the good of both of them.
He wanted his daughter to have a good husband—a good man. And Jonathan needed a good wife, which Matthew was convinced Maggie would be—to the right man. All the same, he didn’t know that he would make it easy on them, if it came down to it. He’d put Jonathan through his paces, even if he was a mature man and not some young dandy out for a lark. It was a father’s job, after all, to take a fella’s measure when he came looking to make a man’s daughter his wife.
Matthew’s thoughts turned somber, even grim, as it occurred to him what a poor job he’d made of it when he took the measure of Richard Barlow. Friend or no, he wouldn’t go too easy on Jonathan. He had no intention of failing his youngest daughter as miserably as he had his eldest.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Wind Harp
The sounds are in the grass and the trees and the bushes,
And they make a kind of music that’s carried on the wind.
But only a few can hear the music of the wind harp.
Maggie MacAuley
For most of the way to the Wallace home on Grant Street, the only sound was the soft pounding of the horse’s hooves and the light patter of rain on top of the buggy. At first Jonathan had tried to make light conversation, but he soon gave it up. He didn’t remember Maggie having “moods,” but if this wasn’t a mood he didn’t know what to call it.
She hadn’t been rude—merely quiet. Uncharacteristically quiet. So quiet that a genuine tension had arisen between them. So quiet that he was reluctant to attempt any means of breaking through the silence. He had asked a few questions about nothing important, and she’d answered each one with an equally superficial reply.
He was actually relieved when they pulled up in front of Ben and Regina’s. Perhaps the company of the Wallaces and the children would help to dispel the chasm that seemed to have opened up between them.
He sensed the same relief in Maggie, who wasted no time whatsoever in getting out of the buggy.
This visit was mostly the same as all the others he’d paid since the children had gone to stay with Ben and Regina. Huey did seem somewhat livelier than usual, but he still maintained the same familiar, frustrating distance from Jonathan and Maggie. He seemed especially shy of Maggie, even though she was his classroom teacher. Jonathan had noticed this before; it was one of the things about the child that puzzled him most. The boy was around Maggie all day. By now he should have become far more at ease with her. Indeed, he couldn’t think of another child from school—at least among the younger ones—who didn’t adore her. Most of the students had quickly become attached to “Miss Maggie.” Even during recess time, she could hardly get a minute to herself because of the way they swarmed around her.
But Huey still avoided her. Jonathan had noticed this from the beginning of the fall term, and couldn’t think for the life of him what accounted for the child’s peculiar behavior. On the other hand, Huey’s older sister, Selma, always an exceedingly shy, quiet child, seemed to blossom under the slightest bit of attention from Maggie or himself.
One bright spot in the evening was a noticeable difference in Selma. They hadn’t been there long, all of them sitting in the living room, when the girl, holding a piece of paper, walked up to Jonathan and, in a near whisper, said, “I made you a picture after school, Mr. Stuart. Miss Regina said you were coming to visit.”
She thrust it at Jonathan before immediately scurrying off to the opposite corner of the room, where she and Huey had been playing Chinese checkers.
This was the first time the girl had ever shown any initiative with Jonathan, and he was inordinately pleased by the gesture. He studied the drawing carefully, smiling at what he saw. It was clearly a picture of himself—with very large eyeglasses—along with Maggie at his side, a rather wild-looking “mane” of copper-colored hair dwarfing her face. On Jonathan’s other side was Selma, holding his hand. And then there was Huey.
Here, Jonathan managed to maintain his smile only with a deliberate effort. Of all the figures, Huey appeared the most realistically drawn. Thin and small, he was holding onto Selma’s hand. Dark hair fell over one eye, but large tears could be seen tracking down his face.
Beside him, Maggie caught a quick breath, and Jonathan knew she had noticed Huey’s tears too.
Managing to keep his smile intact, he quietly called Selma over to him. Her pale skin was flushed and somewhat splotched as she approached. Her eyes never left Jonathan’s face.
“May I keep this, Selma?” he asked.
She favored him with a shy smile and a nod, then immediately ducked her head and looked down at the floor. But Jonathan reached out and with his index finger gently lifted her chin so she would meet her eyes. “This is an excellent drawing, Selma. I think if you work hard you might one day become a true artist.”
The child’s face flamed, but her smile was almost ecstatic.
“I’m going to find a frame for this when I get home and mount it on my wall,” Jonathan told her, intending to do just that.
Even the smallest sign of progress with these two gave him hope.
He glanced across the room at Huey. He was surprised to find the boy watching him in return, his eyes intent, his expression one of longing, a sorrowful set to his features.
It struck Jonathan in that moment that here was a child starved for affection yet for some reason unable to respond to it when it was offered.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Maggie too had seen something in Huey’s face that caught her off guard. He knew she was puzzled—and possibly hurt—by the way the child continued to cut himself off from her. He also knew that she had tried every means she could think of to win him over, all in vain.
After what Jonathan had seen tonight, he was convinced the boy’s withdrawal had absolutely nothing to do with Maggie, nothing to do with himself either, for that matter, but most likely had everything to do with the kind of life the child had been forced to live.
Huey was simply afraid to accept affection—and was even more wary of giving it. As for the tears in Selma’s drawing, had she merely sensed her younger brother’s pain? Or had she witnessed the cause of it?
Jonathan was resolved to find out what went on in that dilapidated house on the Hill that would move a ten-year-old child to paint tears on a drawing of her little brother.
On the way home, Jonathan again ventured an attempt at conversation. Thinking Maggie might need to talk about Huey, he first brought up the subject of Selma’s drawing.
“The way she depicted Huey made me want to weep too,” Maggie acknowledged. “I wish I could find a way to win that boy’s trust. He breaks my heart.”
“You do realize, I hope, that his lack of response has nothing to do with you.”
She gave a long sigh. “Well I’d hate it if something about me puts him off. But if that’s not it, then what accounts for his behavior?”
“He’s really not much different with me, you know. He simply doesn’t communicate with any of us. Except perhaps for Ben and Regina. Ben told me he’s seeing faint signs of progress where both children are concerned. Especially with Regina.”
“Oh, goodness, who wouldn’t warm toward Mrs. Wallace? She’s wonderful!”
Jonathan smiled. “They’re an exceptional couple, aren’t they? If anyone can help those children, the
y will.”
The dusk of evening was quickly drawing in on them. The rain was light, with only a breeze driving it, not the high wind that so often marked these October rains in the mountains. Jonathan had closed the buggy’s flaps before they drove away from the Wallaces’, and with that and a lap robe for each of them, it was almost cozy inside the well-crafted little vehicle.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked, glancing over at Maggie.
She nodded slightly.
Jonathan was trying to detect her mood. He sensed that her earlier remoteness had passed, but now she seemed pensive, perhaps even sad. He wondered if her state of mind was altogether due to Huey or if something else had upset her.
“You’re troubled,” he noted carefully. “Is it Huey?”
She seemed unwilling to look at him, keeping her gaze straight ahead. “No, not really. Oh, Huey’s a part of it. But I honestly don’t believe I’m the reason—not the only reason at least—that he’s so hard to reach.” She stopped. “Actually,” she said, her voice low, “it’s just… the rain.”
Jonathan looked at her. “The rain?”
She nodded. “I know it sounds foolish, but sometimes…when it rains like this in the evening, and it’s cold and gloomy and quiet, it makes me feel sad.”
Her hands were folded on top of the lap robe, her fingers laced tightly together.
After a moment, she went on. “Da says I’m the most Irish of us all. He says I have the dark in me.”
What kind of a thing was that for a man to say to his daughter?
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She turned and he was relieved to see a faint smile curve her lips. “That’s just Da’s way of describing the melancholy. It’s nothing bad, really. Some folks are just affected by the weather, the change in seasons, even the time of day—”
Again she stopped and turned her gaze back to the road.
“I still don’t understand,” Jonathan prompted.
“It’s the wind harp,” she said, her voice even lower than before and strangely dreamy. “I’m one of the ones who hear it. Like Da—he hears it too.”