Sons of an Ancient Glory

by BJ Hoff

  Expelling yet another hard gasp, she sank back onto the pillow. Trying not to show his own anxiety, Daniel met Johanna’s anxious stare across the bed. He motioned that she should bring a cool cloth, then bent over to touch his lips to his mother’s forehead, flinching at the heat of her skin.

  Staring into her pain-darkened eyes, he had all he could do to mask his fear. Somehow he managed a smile and said again, “Dr. Grafton will be here soon, Mother, he and Evan. Everything is going to be perfectly fine. Truly, it is.”

  Even as he spoke, Daniel realized his reassurance was as much for himself as for her.

  Lewis Farmington had left the shipyards as soon as he learned about Evan’s abrupt departure.

  Upon reaching the cottage and seeing his assistant’s haggard face, Lewis was glad he had come, more grateful still that he’d had the forethought to send for Winnie. The small house would not hold too many, but he knew Evan would want his aunt with him. And, admittedly, Lewis wanted Winnie with him.

  Nicholas Grafton had preceded Lewis’s arrival by only minutes and had already ordered everyone out of the bedroom—everyone except Johanna. Nora had insisted that she stay, and the child seemed pleased—if a bit anxious—about being chosen.

  Lewis smiled to himself. After the terrible tragedy of Little Tom’s death, the girl needed to be needed again, needed to feel special. It was just like Nora to think of it, even in her own pain.

  An obviously nervous Daniel John sat perched on the very edge of the settee beside a white-faced Evan, who looked positively stricken.

  Lewis turned back to the front window and resumed staring out into the night. Only a few streetlamps and faint light from behind curtained windows relieved the darkness. He sighed. They were in for a long night. A very long night, he feared.

  He hoped Winnie would arrive soon. Her presence would lighten things up a bit for them all. She did that, Winnie did. The woman had a way of brightening a room by just walking through it. Certainly tonight, Evan could use a generous measure of his aunt’s lively cheer.

  Lewis smiled ruefully as he considered how taken he was with Winnie, wondering if he were as obvious to anyone else as he was to her. She seemed to tolerate his attentions well enough, but he could only hope she wasn’t merely being kind because he happened to be her nephew’s employer.

  There’s no fool like an old fool.…

  Grimacing at the direction his thoughts had taken, he forced himself to think about Evan instead of Evan’s aunt.

  Over the past two years he had come to care a great deal for the mild-mannered young Englishman. Evan was—well, the truth was, Evan had become almost like a son to him. He trusted the man completely, enjoyed his company greatly, and depended on him more every day.

  Should he feel guilty, he wondered, that he respected Evan more than he did his own son? Oh, he loved Gordon, of course, but the unfortunate truth was that his only son was simply not very likable.

  This latest caper—taking his family off to California in pursuit of yet another moneymaking scheme—had hurt Lewis far more than he cared to admit. Gordon had it in his head to open a bank for the gold miners flooding the western part of the country. So, just before Christmas past, with scarcely any warning at all, he’d simply up and moved his rather foolish, excessively spoiled wife and two equally spoiled children to California.

  It saddened Lewis that his son, already a wealthy man, seemed obsessed with acquiring still more riches. From the time they were small, Lewis had done his best to teach both Gordon and Sara that, although the Farmingtons might have more than their share of money, the accumulation of a fortune should not motivate their lives. At the same time, he had tried to instill in each of them the sense of responsibility he believed should accompany great wealth.

  Sara, God bless the girl, was generous to a fault and held her material possessions lightly. But Gordon—Lewis felt that he had failed his son in some way, and that failure continued to weigh upon him.

  Still, he had to admit that even before Gordon’s defection, he had grown extraordinarily fond of Evan and Nora Whittaker. The immigrant couple were almost as much family to him by now as his own offspring, and he intended to do whatever he could to make life a bit easier for the two of them.

  The exasperating thing was that there seemed very little he could do in a situation such as this. Nora was to have been hospitalized for the delivery, but now that was impossible. Nicholas said it would be far too dangerous to try to move her.

  Gripped by frustration, it occurred to Lewis that here was yet another circumstance which ten fortunes could not redeem. Again he saw the truth with piercing clarity: those things which counted most in life were beyond the control of mere human beings and all the means at their disposal.

  There would always be times, and this was one of them, when enormous wealth could do absolutely nothing to make a difference. Tonight, in this modest small home, there was only the skill of a good physician—and the power of the Great Physician—to rely on.

  Lewis comforted himself with the reminder that, on numerous occasions of which he was aware, that particular combination had been more than enough.

  12

  The Mystery, the Miracle

  For He is our childhood’s pattern,

  Day by day like us He grew,

  He was little, weak and helpless,

  Tears and smiles like us He knew

  And He feeleth for our sadness,

  And He shareth in our gladness.

  CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER (1820-1895)

  Unable to carry on any sort of conversation with the others who had gathered in the parlor, Evan had gone off in a desperate search for solitude.

  Now, alone in Daniel John’s bedroom, he closed the door, hoping to shut out the agonizing sound of Nora’s pain. Every cry, every moan, was like a knife slashing at his heart. Yet the last report from Dr. Grafton had indicated that it might be hours yet before the baby was born.

  Aching with weariness and worry, he sank down on the side of the bed. For a long time, he sat, numb and unmoving, rubbing his hand over his eyes.

  From the other side of the door, he could still hear Nora’s cries echoing down the hall. He had dreaded this night, had lived in terror of it. Yet the worst of his apprehension hadn’t come close to the reality. She was suffering even more than he had feared, and there was nothing—dear God, nothing—he could do to help her!

  Being shut out from her, banished from the bedroom by convention and his wife’s pleas, only made things more difficult. If he could have stayed with her, held her hand, sponged her forehead—anything—at least he might have somehow shared a part of her pain.

  He remembered how helpless he had felt when she’d been ill with the scarlet fever, months before their marriage—how he had stayed in the hospital room, watching over her. Throughout that long siege, his own skin had burned with the heat of Nora’s fever. His heart had pounded with the hammering of her pulse. His body had ached from the viselike grip of the treacherous disease. He had been with her throughout the entire nightmare—and somehow, that had almost made it bearable.

  But tonight—tonight, Nora seemed so…separate from him, so distant. Enshrouded in the mystery and the miracle of birth, she was more like a stranger than his wife.

  Just down the hall, only heartbeats away, she struggled and gasped and labored through the most wondrous, miraculous event imaginable…while he sat here, utterly helpless, feeling an entire world removed from her. He thought he could not bear the thought of her pain, could endure even less the reality that she must go through it alone.

  Newly consumed by fear and frustration, he hauled himself up from the bed and sank slowly to his knees. He found himself seized by a fit of trembling, and for a time he could do nothing but weep, quietly, desperately, like a frightened boy. The prayer he had thought to voice seemed lodged in his throat, buried beneath a tidal wave of terror.

  “Oh, God! How much longer m-must this go on? She has already had so much pain to
night…and b-before tonight! So much p-pain, Lord—and to face it alone—oh, Lord, won’t You p-please just…stop the pain? Deliver her from the hurting, let it end. She’s so alone.…”

  She is not alone. I am with her in the pain…

  Evan drew a deep breath, faltering. “But she—she has such agony.…

  I had Gethsemane.…

  “Lord, she suffers.…”

  I suffered Calvary.…

  “If I c-could only be with her, Lord.…”

  I am with her, Evan. I am as close to her in her pain, as she struggles to bring forth your son, as I was to my own mother the day she watched her son die on a cross.…

  Evan’s weeping subsided, at least a little. The bleeding of his heart seemed to slow. “You…are there with her—truly, Lord? You are there, in that r-room, with Nora? At this very moment, in her p-pain…You are there?’”

  Evan…Evan…do you not yet realize that I am closer to my children in their pain than at any other time? I hold you in my arms when you hurt. I rock you like a child when you suffer. Quiet your soul, Evan. I am holding Nora now…at this moment. She is not alone, son…never alone. Nora is in her Father’s arms.

  Evan opened his eyes, then quickly squeezed them shut again as he basked in the light and warmth that seemed to fill the tiny bedroom. “Lord…” he ventured. “Lord? Did I hear…d-did You say…son?”

  Theodore Charles Lewis Whittaker was born at three o’clock in the morning.

  The longest night of Evan’s life finally ended with a timid cry from his newborn son, a wan, fleeting smile from his exhausted wife, and weary, relieved hugs from those who had stayed the night, keeping vigil: Daniel John and Johanna, of course, and Aunt Winnie and Lewis Farmington. Later Sara Farmington Burke had arrived and proved a great source of comfort. Also present was Jess Dalton. The big, curly-headed pastor had stopped by early in the evening and, after one look at Evan, had remained for the duration.

  Even now, after repeated reassurances from Dr. Grafton that both Nora and the child seemed to be doing nicely, Evan could do nothing but sit and stare in numb amazement at them both.

  In the bedroom, her new son nursing contentedly at her breast, Nora watched Evan with eyes that refused to stay open for more than seconds at a time.

  Surely she had never been so depleted in her life. The births of her other children had all been long and never easy. Yet none had wreaked such havoc on her body as this wee boy-child in her arms. But, oh, wasn’t it worth it all, to hold a new, fresh-faced babe at her breast and see the dazed look of happiness in Evan’s eyes!

  “You are quite sure he is healthy?” she asked again, as if she had not already heard the answer more than once.

  Clutching her hand, Evan nodded. “You’ve c-counted his t-toes and fingers yourself, dear…how m-many times now?”

  “There’s more to it than fingers and toes,” Nora said, surprised at the effort it took simply to speak. “I never told you, Evan, but from the beginning, when I first learned I was with child—I was frightened. Frightened that perhaps the Hunger or the scarlet fever might cause something to go wrong with the babe.”

  She saw a change in his expression, just for an instant. “Well…I, ah, I admit that I wasn’t without m-my own fears at times,” he said, his voice low. “But you c-can see for yourself,” he added, his eyes clearing, “that he is quite p-perfect.”

  Nora nodded, straining not to fall asleep. She didn’t want to miss a moment of this special time with her husband and their new son. “And don’t I thank the Lord for that?” She sighed deeply. “I’m so glad it’s a boy, Evan. For you. And for Johanna.”

  Evan frowned. “Johanna?”

  “She misses wee Tom so. She still grieves for him, as do I.” Nora’s joy faded, and for a moment she said nothing. Even now, as she held her new son next to her heart, the thought of Little Tom’s drowning brought a shudder of sadness.

  Instinctively, she touched her hand to her son’s small, downy head in a reassuring caress. “Perhaps now,” she finally went on, “Johanna will begin to let go of Tom, at least a little.” She looked at Evan. “You don’t think I was wrong, to let her stay through the birth? She was with Catherine, you see, when Little Tom was born.”

  Evan squeezed her hand. “I think you d-did just the right thing,” he said firmly. “And it helped me to know Johanna was with you. I…I wanted to stay, you know. I didn’t w-want to leave you alone.”

  Surprised, Nora searched his face. “Why, I wasn’t alone, Evan.”

  Lifting his head, he looked at her closely.

  Nora smiled and nodded. “I wasn’t alone at all. Oh, Evan—it was really quite wonderful! Truly.”

  He leaned forward still more, his hand tightening on hers. “But…you were in such pain.”

  Again Nora turned her gaze to the delicately formed little head snuggled against her breast. He was so perfect! He was the most beautiful of babies, this new son! “Well, now, there’s no having a baby without the pain, and that’s the truth. But isn’t it worth whatever it takes?”

  “Of course,” Evan conceded. “But…wonderful? I d-don’t understand.”

  Nora thought for a moment, struggling to find just the right words to explain something she suspected might be beyond explanation. A mystery.

  “You are the one who’s good with words, Evan, not I,” she said, smiling faintly. “It’s just that…something happens…not always, but sometimes…amid the pain…”

  Again she paused, studying him. His face was drawn, even haggard, reflecting the long, arduous night. But Nora sensed that this was important to him, and so, in spite of her own exhaustion, she weighed her reply with great care.

  “’Tis a difficult thing to explain, you see. When the other children were born, and when I had the scarlet fever—and then again tonight—it’s as if I’m in the very center of the pain, and yet, in a way, I’m not a part of it at all. It almost seems as if—”

  She stopped, turning to look toward the window. The baby sighed, warming her breast with his sweet breath, and Nora suddenly felt such a peace, a contentment. For a moment, the room didn’t exist for her. Her thoughts wandered.

  She was remembering, remembering the excruciating pain…but more than that, she remembered the Other: the sense of something else…no, Someone else, Someone whose presence made the pain seem small, even insignificant. She remembered the warmth, enfolding her, holding her…protecting her.…

  She turned toward Evan. His expression was intent, his eyes locked on her face. “This is what it’s like, Evan, as near as I can give words to the feelings. It’s as if the Lord Himself comes to me and scoops me up in His arms and somehow carries me through the pain. And when it happens, when I realize who is holding me, it does seem for all the world that everything—even the pain—is nothing at all but a glory.”

  She stopped. “This much I do know and believe, Evan: that I am closer to our Lord during those times than at any other moment of my life.”

  She felt his hand tremble in hers. For a long time, neither of them spoke, and Nora felt herself drifting off to sleep. With an effort, she forced her eyes open to find him studying her with a tearful gaze.

  “Evan…Evan, you are pleased? About the baby?”

  Leaning forward, he brought her hand to his lips. “What a qu-question for you to ask!” His voice sounded gruff with emotion. “Of course, I’m pleased! I am…I’m overwhelmed!”

  Nora smiled at him. Her head was spinning with weakness, but she could not take her eyes off her husband and her tiny newborn boy, now sound asleep. “I have given you a son at last, Evan. A beautiful, healthy son, thanks be to God.”

  “Yes…thanks b-be to God,” he echoed quietly, and Nora wondered at the trembling in his voice.

  “What shall we be calling him, Evan?”

  “Why, I thought we had already d-decided on his name, dear!”

  “Yes,” Nora said, marveling anew at the baby’s fine dusting of sand-colored hair, the tiny ears so amazi
ngly perfect. “But what shall we call him? Sure, such a big name is too much for the wee wane to carry until he’s older.”

  Evan seemed to consider her words a moment. “Teddy,” he finally said, nodding slowly. “Why don’t we call him Teddy?”

  “Teddy,” Nora repeated thickly, feeling herself fast losing the battle to stay awake. “Aye, then…we shall call our son Teddy. Teddy is a fine name.…”

  13

  Enemy Territory

  Men of the same soil placed in hostile array,

  Prepared to encounter in deadly affray.

  ROBERT YOUNG (1800-c. 1870)

  Simon Dabney’s Fourth of July parties had been a society event for the past five years. State senators, congressmen, city aldermen, and other notables were among the illustrious guests who never failed to make an appearance—in addition to select members of the police force.

  Tonight’s affair promised to be the largest and most lavish to date. The ballroom of the Dabney mansion was ablaze with light. Throughout the spacious hall, crystal chandeliers glittered like diamonds dancing in fire, while hundreds of candles fluttered in the soft summer breeze drifting through the open windows.

  Sara’s dress was a triumph of emerald satin and silk, triple-skirted with deep flounces. Only on rare occasions did she wear her mother’s jewelry, but she had deemed tonight a special enough event for a diamond pendant. Such finery, topped off with a sprig of summer flowers tucked into her hair, made her feel positively elegant.

  But it was the open approval in her husband’s eyes that accounted for the giddiness that swept over her every few moments. Tonight, sitting across from her father and Winifred, with Michael at her side, Sara thought she must be the most fortunate woman in the room—indeed, in New York City! She had a wonderful family, a good, good life—and a handsome husband who still looked at her with undisguised admiration, still paid her court with his gallantry and attentions.