A Bride's Agreement

by Elaine Bonner

  The lamp on the table cast only a dim, mellow light in that part of the kitchen. Maybe that made it easier to ask. “Why did you agree to marry me?”

  She stopped moving for a full ten seconds. Would she ignore the question? “You said you needed me.”

  It wasn’t the answer he longed to hear, but he hadn’t any choice but to accept it.

  “I love being part of your family. Some moments I almost feel like a mother to the younger ones.” She wrapped her arms over her chest, and he had the fleeting thought that she was trying to comfort herself. “Being here has made me wonder about my own mother—the one who died. I didn’t think I remembered her well enough to miss her until I came here. Now I wonder whether she’d wanted to move here—to what was then the frontier—whether she loved my father, what her dreams were for Johnny and me, what she thought and feared and prayed for concerning us when she knew she was going to die and had to leave us.”

  “I’ve been wondering some of the same things about my own mother these last few months.” He cleared the huskiness from his throat and reached a hand to her. “Come here.” Did his request sound as much like begging to her as it did to him?

  She took his hand hesitantly, and he tugged gently. “Come here,” he repeated softly.

  He pulled her into his lap, cradling her in his arms, rejoicing in the feel of her head resting against his shoulder, even as he ached for her pain. Teardrops glistened on her lashes, but she didn’t cry. He couldn’t recall ever seeing her cry. If only his arms wrapped around her could draw her pain away!

  One hand cupped the back of her head and slid down the length of golden hair. Never had he felt anything so silky. The only time he saw her hair down was during Grace’s nightmares. It had been years since she’d worn it down in public. A tremor ran through her at his touch, and he regretfully forced his hands to be still.

  Tentatively he rested his cheek against her hair. He’d wanted to give her comfort, and instead he was frightening her. “Dear Lord, we thank Thee for Pearl’s parents and the love they must have had for the little girl they had to entrust into Thy care after having her with them for such a short time. Thank Thee for the hopes and prayers they had for Pearl, which are known only unto Thee. And for Dr. Matt and Boston, who love her as their own. In Thy Son’s name. Amen.”

  “Oh Jason!” Her words were a half sob that wrenched his heart.

  “I wish I could take away all your pain,” he whispered hoarsely.

  “And I yours.”

  At a noise from the floor above them, Pearl pushed herself quickly from his lap. “I’d best get breakfast. Andy and the girls will be rising soon.”

  Regret swept over him. Perhaps it was for the best. It had become more difficult every moment to keep from lifting her face to his and kissing her the way he’d longed to do for months.

  “The kids all love you. Maggie thinks the sun rises and sets with you. And Grace—thanks to you, her nightmares are almost a thing of the past. The scrapbook you started for her was an inspiration, asking each of us to write down a memory of things Mom and Dad did that showed how much they loved her and then letting her draw pictures in the book to illustrate them. It’s become her favorite storybook.”

  “It’s your family’s love that healed her. Love is stronger than any fear.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is.” Gratitude for the blessing she was to his family warmed his soul. She’d given so much to all of them. For them it was worth the constant fire that raged inside him, the continual yearning for her love, regardless if she ever returned his affection. But for her? “You’ve been a great helpmate these last few months. I’ve sure made a mess of being the head of this family.”

  “That’s not true. You’ve kept everyone together, kept the farm running, made the payments on your father’s banknote, seen to it there was food on the table, and that all the family’s needs have been met.”

  Sausage sizzled in a pan, its odor covering that of the kerosene lamp and the fire in the stove.

  He propped his elbows on the rocker’s oaken arms and clasped his hands together in front of him. “I’ve alienated Frank somehow. Can’t understand his drinking and carousing and temper tantrums. He never used to do such things.”

  “Perhaps he’s trying to find a way to deal with his grief.”

  “I would have sworn he knew better than to think a man could handle his problems that way.” He ran a hand through his unkempt hair. “Sometimes I want to ask him to leave home and support himself. Maybe that would make him sober up and act responsibly. But the farm and house are as much his as mine, and I’ve no right to demand he leave.”

  “Remember your mother’s sampler? ‘Charity hopeth all things.’ We need to keep believing in Frank and hoping for him, Jason. Eventually, God will show you a way to make peace with him.”

  If he’s still alive. He pushed the thought from his mind.

  “Our God is the God of hope,” she reminded. Her smile warmed some of the ice around his heart.

  The God of hope. The thought cheered him. Maybe God would see to getting Frank back on the right path. And maybe He’d even bring Pearl around to loving him. Maybe. The flame of hope he’d thought extinguished began to flicker once more.

  “Is… is there any chance Frank might be able to go to Windom Academy for winter term?”

  Arguing Frank’s cause again! His heart constricted painfully. He wasn’t about to remind her that the arguments might be meaningless if Frank… He swallowed, not allowing himself to complete the thought.

  “Do you think giving in to him on Windom would stop his drinking? Even if it did, wouldn’t he only resort to drinking again when he runs into life’s next disappointment?”

  “I wasn’t thinking only of his drinking. I was thinking…” She hesitated, then rushed on, “I have so much admiration for you and your willingness to sacrifice for your family. Of course, I never thought for a moment you would do anything less, but…”

  “Forget the flattery. What is the ‘but’?”

  “Perhaps God isn’t asking the same sacrifices of Frank that He’s asking of you.”

  It hadn’t once occurred to him to ask God whether he should support Frank’s wish to go to Windom this year. All this time he’d thought he was relying on God’s strength to run the farm and keep the family together. Had he been kidding himself—only been relying on God to help him go his own way?

  “I’ll pray about it,” came Jason’s hoarse response.

  CHAPTER 14

  The storm buffeted the house all the next day. The Sterling family even had to keep lamps lit because of the heavy snow and cloud cover. But the quiet among the family was more stifling than the darkness or the howling wind. Everyone but Grace was painfully aware of the dangers of a prairie blizzard. Only five years earlier, the infamous blizzard of ’88 had claimed many lives across the Upper Plains states, including the lives of some of their neighbors.

  Two of the victims had been Billy Worth’s parents. After their deaths, Billy had been taken in by his grandfather. Pearl’s brother, Johnny, married about the time Billy’s grandfather died. The boy now lived with Johnny and Jewell. Billy’s loss in ’88 made the danger of the present blizzard more real.

  After Jason had explained the situation to Maggie and Andrew, no one had spoken of it. They all realized that until the wind died down, there was nothing any of them could do but pray. By unspoken agreement, they kept busy with work about the house, homework, or playing with Grace. Every few minutes, someone would go to stand beside a window or put on a coat and walk out on the porch, vainly seeking a moving figure in the blinding snow.

  Jason and Andrew tied ropes around their waists and went to the barn to care for the animals and chickens. The temperature had dropped drastically, and Pearl felt sorry for the creatures. Their water would likely be frozen before they had a chance to drink more than a few swallows.

  When they returned from the barn, Jason noticed Pearl had moved the sampler that had hung in his
parents’ bedroom to the wall above the kitchen table—a silent reminder not to give up on Frank.

  The storm still blew that night, and it was almost morning before it calmed. Immediately after breakfast, Andrew and Jason put on snowshoes and began to search again for Frank. Maggie left for neighboring farms to inquire if anyone had seen Frank, and to request assistance in the search. For once, Jason allowed Pearl to care for the cows and chickens.

  It was still early when Jason, Andrew, and Maggie returned with Frank. The relief at finding him alive filled all their faces.

  It turned out Frank had lost his way in the storm, eventually stumbling against Thor Lindstrom’s barn. Realizing it would be suicide to try to leave the building, he’d huddled in the hay beneath a horse blanket. Thor found him there the next morning when he worked his way to the barn with a rope around his waist to care for the animals. Frank knew his family would be worried sick about him, but there was nothing to be done except stay with Thor and Ellie until the storm wore itself out.

  He’d set out this morning with Thor accompanying him. The good-hearted Scandinavian wanted to make certain Frank had the strength to make it home. On the way, they’d met the Sterlings. Pearl never heard whether any cross words were spoken between Frank and Jason at that meeting. She only knew that relief eased the lines of fatigue and fear that had been etched in Jason’s face during the prior thirty-six hours, and her heart rejoiced with thanksgiving to God.

  Two apple pies filled the kitchen with their delectable odor as Pearl pulled them from the oven a few hours later, reflecting on how quickly the household had settled back to normal. Frank’s safe return had almost felt anticlimactic.

  Jason and Andrew were now busy clearing a path from the house to the barn. That and clearing an area in the corral and in front of the chicken coop would take them most of the afternoon. A few minutes earlier, Maggie had taken a restless Grace outside to make a snowman. The little girl’s happy squeals could be heard through the closed windows.

  “Guess I caused a mess of trouble, huh?”

  She set the pies carefully on the wooden rack of the freestanding cupboard and looked over at Frank. The dark, deep-set eyes that so many Chippewa City misses found romantic watched her broodingly.

  “It’s behind us. We’re all just glad you’re back safe and sound.” Would this experience convince him to stop drinking? She fervently hoped so.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  She lifted the cover of the Dutch oven on the stove top. The tantalizing scent of beef stew drifted into the room. “Oh?”

  “For saying those things about you and Jason the other night.”

  She hoped he’d think it was the heat of the stove coloring her face.

  His chapped hand brushed back his black hair impatiently. “I don’t understand. You know more than anyone how much Jason loved Miranda. Why did you marry him?”

  “I love him.” She could hardly believe the calm with which she met his challenging look. The seconds grew long as they stared. She refused to look away first, as though loving Jason was something of which to be ashamed.

  He plunged his hands into his pockets. “I know what it’s like to love someone who cares for another. Seems I’ve loved Amy Henderson since I first began noticing girls.”

  Frank in love with Amy!

  He cleared his throat. “Appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to anyone. Haven’t even told Jason.”

  There were biscuits to be made for dinner, but she didn’t move. It wasn’t easy for him to confess his love for Amy, and she didn’t want to show disrespect for his admission. “Why haven’t you courted her?”

  He snorted. Anger filled the eyes he turned to her, making them look black. “Think she’d be interested in a farmer when the almighty Ed Ray, a man planning to be a lawyer, is courting her? If I’d ever entertained such a foolish notion, Miranda’s refusal to marry Jason would have killed it.”

  “You do Amy a disservice, comparing her to Miranda. It’s not a man’s vocation that will win Amy’s love; it’s a man’s character.”

  “Ed Ray hasn’t a shred of character! Why are women so blind? Why can’t she see that Ed’s everything she says she detests? He can drink me under the table in no time.”

  “You needn’t growl about it. The truth about a man’s character always comes out in time.”

  “Hope it’s before she marries the louse.”

  Pearl measured the flour into a sieve. “Is that why you want to go to Windom Academy? To impress Amy?”

  She’d added soda, cream of tartar, salt, and sugar and run the mixture through the sieve before he answered. “Yes. Sounds downright stupid when you put it into words like that.”

  “She’d be more impressed if you quit drinking. At the musicale, she told me she was upset you’d turned to it.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes. “She did?”

  “Yes. She thought it a shame such a fine young man was acquiring such a destructive habit.”

  Hands on the oilcloth table covering, he leaned across to look into her face. “She called me a fine young man?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t try to hide the twinkle in her eyes. “I give you fair warning, she’s praying that you’ll give up drinking.”

  “It would be worth it, for Amy.”

  His vehemence was almost convincing, but Jason’s comment cut through her memory. If he gave up drinking for Amy, would he only return to it again the next time something difficult happened in his life?

  She rolled out the dough and reached for the tin biscuit cutter. “There are many men who don’t drink. While that’s important to Amy, it isn’t enough in itself to win her love.”

  “And what is?”

  “A God-fearing man. A man with enough character to do what’s right for no other reason but that it is right, regardless of the consequences.”

  With a mutter she couldn’t decipher, he turned his back.

  “If you want to go to Windom Academy so badly, why have you stayed on the farm? Why haven’t you tried to find a position to earn the money to pay tuition?”

  He jammed his hands into his pockets and walked to the window. “Jason and Andrew would have had to hire another man to help with the harvest and threshing. That would more than double the expense of my tuition. It wouldn’t be fair to the family.”

  So he felt the burden of the family the same as Jason. “Amy would approve of that aspect of your character—as I do.”

  A flush spread over his high cheekbones. “I’ve already destroyed any chance I might have had with Amy. She’d never consider courting me, with my drinking and all.”

  “You can change. God doesn’t give up on us because we make mistakes. If we ask Him to forgive us and help us change, He meets us where we are and gives us a new start. God’s love couldn’t hope all things for us without that, and we couldn’t hope all things for each other.”

  He slouched against the window frame. “Once I had all kinds of dreams for the future. I don’t believe in fairy tales anymore.”

  She placed the biscuits in the oven. “Dreams seldom fall into our lives like gifts all wrapped up in fancy bows. Hopes and dreams require effort; we must live like we believe they will happen.

  “You’re a farmer. You know you don’t have a crop without plowing and planting and caring for the crops while they’re growing. You can’t make hopes and dreams happen any more than a farmer can make grain grow from a seed—only God can do that. But we can kill hope by not nurturing it, as a farmer can his crops.”

  Scorn curled his lips. “You’re living in a rainbow world.” His arm shot toward the window. “See that? It’s winter—cold and barren and hard, just like life.”

  “Spring and summer and fall, with all their beauty, warmth, and abundant life are just as real as winter. Life doesn’t stay hard forever.”

  He swung from the window, his gazes burning into hers. “Doesn’t it?” he demanded. “How easy will life be for you, living out your years with a man w
ho loves another woman?”

  CHAPTER 15

  How easy will life be for you, living out your years with a man who loves another woman?” Pearl rubbed her fingers against her temples, wishing she could rub Frank’s words from her mind. His challenge had been slipping into her thoughts at least once every waking hour for the last week, taunting her faith.

  “I won’t believe Jason will never love me,” she whispered fiercely. “I won’t!”

  She pulled a linen tablecloth for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving dinner from the hope chest that sat at the end of her bed. Sinking down on top of the chest, she rubbed a hand along the smooth finish. Dr. Matt and Boston had given the chest to her for Christmas one year. She’d always loved it.

  How silly to think something as intangible as hope could be kept in a chest!

  She stood and strode swiftly to the door. Paused. Or was it silly? Was making and storing things for the day one would marry a way of making hope real, helping it grow, keeping it alive—as she’d told Frank one must do?

  Of course, one couldn’t hope for just anything and expect God to produce it. But if the desired object was God’s will—such as husbands and wives loving each other—could it be wrong to encourage that hope?

  A picture flashed in her mind—a picture of herself filling the hope chest with acts of love for Jason. She’d call that picture to mind to replace Frank’s ugly words whenever they assailed her.

  Warmth wrapped around Jason’s heart as he looked down the long table to where Pearl sat at the other end. This was the way it should be, the two of them surrounded by happy family. All the leaves had been added to the dining room table to accommodate the guests: Dr. Matt, Boston, Johnny, Jewell, and curly haired Billy. Having Pearl’s family with them for the first holiday since his parents died made it easier for him and his brothers and sisters.

  The kitchen had been busy as a beehive all day with the women chattering away while making all the traditional Thanksgiving foods. The smell of roasting turkey filled the house and brought the men to the kitchen time and again hoping for something to satisfy their tempted appetites.