by Diane Noble
“They’re mine,” I whispered, mostly to myself. “Exactly the same.” A few of the neighborhood children had walked to the road where Micheil had tied the mare. They stood silent, watchful, as Micheil and I stepped through the gate.
Micheil looked at me with a puzzled expression as he helped me from the wagon.
“My garden in Oak Hill,” I said, still frowning. “Welsie planted everything I told her was in my garden, the same order and patterns.” It was true, but with her illness, her gardening had obviously ceased. The whole array was tangled and wild; milkweed and dandelions and dead grasses sprouted between the growth of cultured plants and flowers.
I ambled slowly along the pathway. “It’s all here,” I said. “Though it’s hard to make them out among the overgrowth and weeds, she planted clumps of daisies here, rows of irises there. Pink and white tea roses. Even cascades of rosemary flowing down from tall, round urns along the path.” I turned and smiled at him.
“She thought you the cleverest lass on earth.” His smile was full of sorrow. “A grandmother’s pride, to be sure.”
I stopped dead still, wondering if I’d heard him right.
He watched me, knowing, understanding. “Welsie True was your grandmother.”
“My grandmother …”
“Aye, lass. One of the many things she wanted to tell you in person.”
I reached for the edge of a nearby urn to steady myself, letting the words sink in. My grandmother.
I turned my back to him then, wanting to lose myself in thought. I walked through the roses, examining each, from bud to full bloom. Micheil stood waiting in the shade of a pepper tree, as if knowing that my time of understanding Welsie True and who she was to me was a solitary walk into the depths of my heart. I was grateful for his silence. For several minutes I took in everything about the garden, picturing my grandmother on her knees working there, weeding and watering. Tamping the tender roots of pansies and daisies and bleeding heart ferns.
I turned to him after a few minutes of reverie. “What did she look like … my grandmother?”
“Ah, she had the fiery spirit of a flame-haired lass, though hers had long ago faded. There was something about her face that seems so like yours.”
I tilted my head away from him at that, surprised at my pleasure. “In what way?”
“A turn of your round cheek, maybe. Or perhaps it’s your eyes—both the color of the heavens on a sunny day. Her hair was snow white, but she told me when she was a lass her da said it was as crimson as a winter sunset.”
I smiled with pleasure at the thought.
He nodded. “And curly as spring tendrils on a grapevine.”
My grin widened. “Tendrils?”
“Just like yours. She said when she was a lass her nose freckled from her love of the sun—something her momma warned her against. Where most young women wore poke bonnets and such to shade their faces, she preferred to be bareheaded.” He glanced toward the ocean. “One reason living in California came to mean everything to her. She took great pleasure in being right here, didn’t want anything to hide the sunlight.”
“Can we go inside?” I looked toward the cottage, wondering what lay on the other side, wondering what other mysteries about Welsie True would finally be revealed.
“Aye, lass.” He walked up the brick walk to the paneled white Dutch door, unlocked it, and then stood aside so I could enter.
I stepped across the threshold and squinted against the bright light that poured through the windows lining the opposite wall. The ocean sparkled in the distance. A latticework gazebo stood squat and friendly to one side. I stepped close to the windows and listened to the faint crashing of the waves below.
A faint scent of violets seemed to hover near, or maybe it was the fragrance from the flower garden outside. I recognized the room, with its upholstered sofa and faded wedding-ring quilt that lay folded across the back, the scatter of crocheted pillows, the straight-backed rocker and petit point footstool. Not because I had seen it—or anything like it—before. I knew it because I knew my grandmother’s heart.
I had known it all along, I realized. I knew her heart because it was so like mine.
Then I noticed the oval-framed painting on the wall. It was of a child, a little boy, maybe three or four years old. He had a squared-off haircut and was sitting on a wooden stool, one foot folded underneath him, the other hanging down, not quite touching the floor.
A solemn child, he seemed to be staring into my eyes.
“Your father,” Micheil said, slightly behind me.
I touched the rounded glass that covered the canvas, a sorrow of loss mixed with joy of discovery boring into my soul. “What was his name?”
“Daniel.”
“Daniel,” I breathed and traced my fingers on the glass over his tiny hands. “Daniel True.”
“Aye, lass. ’Tis your da.”
“Tell me everything,” I whispered, still looking into my father’s little-boy eyes. “Tell me what happened.”
Micheil took my elbow and led me gently back through the door and into the garden. He guided me to a small wooden table and two chairs under the shade of the pepper tree. “What I have to tell you will take awhile, and ’Tis not always an easy tale to hear. For it will surely break your heart.”
I sat opposite him and nodded for him to begin.
“ ‘Twas a spring day in fifty-five when they met,” he said, “the young Daniel True and his bride-to-be, Fairwyn Enid March. They were no more than children, at least that is how it seemed to your Poppy and Granny Nana and to Welsie True.” He paused, looking deep into my eyes, almost as if measuring how ready I was to hear the story.
“Go on,” I said.
“ ’Tis a tale of tragedy,” he said, and, looking off across the valley where the mission lay, he began to tell me the story.
Twenty-Three
“Your grandmother told me her story many different times, now and again seeming to relive the events. Sometimes, lass, she wept as she spoke, other times she had to stop altogether only to continue another day. Toward the end, she made me retell what she’d said, making certain I had it right.”
“Tell me everything,” I said. “Every detail.”
He settled back, a faraway look in his eyes saying he was somehow connected to the story he was about to tell. “Well, it seems the Trues and the Marches had long been friends in the Old Country,” Micheil said. “They even sailed from Wales on the same ship, first settling in Virginia for a time, then moving on across the Appalachian Mountains into the hills and hollows around Sycamore Creek and Blackberry Mountain.”
“The first March to come here was my great-great-grandfather,” I said, remembering the tales Poppy had told when I was a child.
“It was the next generation that had a feud over land. Your granddaddy’s father—”
“Anwar,” I filled in.
“Yes, Anwar March, broke with the Trues after a fight with a man named Fagan True. Each swore to kill the other if they set foot on the other’s land. Anwar had quite a temper, just as Fagan did. Welsie said they were enough alike to be brothers. Cain and Abel, she said.”
“The only True I ever heard of was Welsie, and that was her married name.”
“That’s because Anwar found a way to run all the Trues off their land long before even your grandfather was born.”
“How’d he do that?”
“There was a fight one night after both Anwar and Fagan were liquored up. Fagan was horsing around—or so it was said—with a rifle, threatening, but meaning no real harm. The gun went off and killed Anwar’s young brother. As you can imagine, it nearly broke the hearts of Anwar and his family.
“They swore they’d run every True man, woman, and child off Blackberry Mountain and out of Sycamore Creek altogether. They got themselves up a posse one night and burnt seven cabins, going from one to the other. Those poor families had nothing to do with Fagan’s drunken killing, but they all suffered. The women talked t
he men out of fighting back, and one by one the families left your valley for other parts. Scattered around the mountains, Welsie True told me. Her family ended up in Sugar Creek, about a hundred miles from where you lived.”
“Poppy never said a word about any of this.”
“He wouldn’t. But according to Welsie, the bitterness ran deep on both sides.”
“How did her son meet my momma if the families were so bitter against each other?”
“It was just after the Gold Rush here in California that Welsie and her son decided to head west. Her husband, John, your grandfather, had just died, and adventurer that she was, she wanted to leave the bitterness and closed surroundings of the mountains.
“So she and Daniel packed up their belongings in a wagon and headed out. Sycamore Creek was on the way, and she wanted to see her sister Selah for the last time.”
I frowned, leaning forward. “How was it that Selah ended up marrying into our neck of the woods?”
Micheil laughed. “I’ve never met her, but apparently she’s not one to be told what she can or cannot do.”
“I know her well. Everything you say is right. And she didn’t marry a March.”
“That’s what Welsie said. So her sins were not as grievous as your father and mother’s.”
My smile faded. “They did the unthinkable.”
“Welsie and Daniel stopped for a visit with Selah. The first night they arrived your momma, Fairwyn Enid, came up the hill to bring Selah some preserves she had just helped put up.” He paused as if gathering his thoughts. “She was beautiful, her cheeks the hue of peaches, Welsie said, her skin the hue of Devonshire cream. And her spirit held just as much beauty. She was filled with love for God, for others, for all mankind. A passionate kind of love. She had never heard of the feud with the Trues, and even if she had, she would have paid it no mind. She was a fiery one, according to Welsie.
“And of course, young Daniel took one look and fell in love. Deeply in love. And she with him. By the time Welsie was ready to move on—and time was growing short for making the trip by fall—Daniel no longer wanted to leave.
“He asked Fairwyn Enid to marry him, and she said yes. When she asked your grandfather, however, the answer was a resounding no.
“The young couple was not to be dissuaded. They went ahead and planned for their future. Daniel had no interest in the California gold fields. He was called to preach, he said. And together the two of them planned to head west together—with or without their families’ blessings—and find themselves a little church. Or build one if they couldn’t find one ready-made. They would raise their family and love others with great passion.
“Welsie said the two of them seemed made for each other. They had three favorite Bible scriptures they went by: the first, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and spirit; the second, love others as you love yourself.”
Micheil stopped, his eyes damp as if treasuring something special Welsie had told him.
“And the third?” I prompted.
“They figured out that another scripture from Zephaniah 3:17 put together with the first two made all the sense in the world for how a child of God should live his life. ‘The LORD thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing.’ ”
He leaned closer, earnestly. “This young couple thought that if God required them to love others as he did, that meant loving others with great joy, even singing over them with love.
“Welsie wept each time she talked about this young couple. They said there would be no hellfire and damnation in their preaching. They felt called to love others into God’s kingdom.”
I found my own eyes damp as I thought about my momma and da, the sorrow at what had happened to them in the end. I wondered how God could have allowed such tragedy to strike. I almost did not want to ask what happened next.
“They decided that your grandfather’s bitterness shouldn’t be allowed to keep them apart. They prayed about their direction, what path they should take. Together they spoke again to Fairwyn Enid’s father and mother, trying to reason with them.
“Your Poppy said she could leave but she was no longer any daughter of his.”
I drew in my breath, surprised. “So she did go with him.”
“Aye. They rode out—Welsie True, her boy, Daniel, and your momma, Fairwyn Enid March. They made it only as far as the wagontrain camp on the western side of the mountains—maybe a week’s ride from Sycamore Creek. The first night they arrived they asked the reverend who was traveling with the train to marry them. The whole encampment witnessed their vows, and a party commenced.” He laughed. “I wish you could have heard Welsie tell of it. There was music and laughter and dancing to beat the band. People they had never seen before helped them celebrate.
“Of course, with the wagon train readying for the grand journey, everyone was in high spirits anyway.
“They camped at that spot for a week or ten days, Welsie recollected. They had just pulled out when a wild posse from the mountains overtook the train and stopped it.
I caught my hand to my mouth. “Poppy?”
“Aye, ‘twas him indeed, with every shirttail cousin named March he could gather. He demanded your momma come home with him.”
“Did she agree?” I was still trying to figure out the lone grave on Blackberry Mountain.
“Oh no. Welsie said your momma ran out to her da, crying and carrying on, pleading with him to let her go. Your Poppy saw his chance. While she was standing there, looking up and crying and praying, he had one of the ruffians with him grab her and haul her onto his horse.
“At that, young Daniel roared from their wagon with a rifle in his hand. He pointed it at your Poppy’s chest and demanded he let Fairwyn Enid go. Of course, your momma now was scared and crying harder than ever. Both sides—the wagon company and the posse—were getting nervous.
“Daniel wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He raised his rifle as if to shoot, all the while demanding that Fairwyn Enid be set upon the ground at once. One of the others in the posse got reckless, took aim, and fired. The ball killed your da on the spot. Later it was found that there was no ammunition in Daniel’s rifle at all. He was a peace lovin’ man. But even so he wasn’t about to let your momma be taken from him. He’d hoped the bluff would be sufficient.
“Your Momma screamed, but the posse was in a hurry to get out of there before the wagon captain commanded his men to fire. So she never got to say good-bye to her new husband.”
I was crying now, a sorrow too deep to comprehend overtaking me. “But Poppy never said anything about all this. I never knew.”
“Welsie wasn’t surprised. When Selah wrote that Fairwyn Enid had died bearing her granddaughter, Welsie was so troubled she couldn’t sleep for weeks. She didn’t want you to grow up in the midst of the bitterness of those mountains. She wrote that she wanted to raise you as her own, thinking maybe because of the True blood running through your veins, your Poppy might agree.
“But he had decided to erase all memory of your father. Pretend he didn’t exist. He wanted to raise you to be dependent on him.”
“He loved me,” I said, though my voice sounded small and uncertain. “I know he did. And after Granny Nana died, he tried to be both mother and father. He taught me his music …” My voice trailed off. I tried to make sense of the man I knew compared to the man in this tale.
I was startled when Micheil reached across the table and put his hand over mine. “Aye, lass. He did love you. You must believe that.” He fell silent for a moment, and around us were only the sounds of the bees working Welsie True’s spent roses.
After a time he spoke again. “Welsie True wrote to her sister Selah who had remained on good terms with your Poppy. She asked Selah to intervene. Your granddaddy agreed to letter writing. That was all. He wanted you to have an education, and because there were no schoolhouses near Blackberry Mountain, he fi
nally gave his consent.” He paused. “There was one condition.”
I already knew. “Welsie True couldn’t reveal what happened.”
Micheil nodded his head slowly. “Or her relationship to you. She gave her word.”
“What about after Poppy died?”
“She knew of your love for him. You wrote of him constantly, how he taught you music, the love and respect he gave you.” He patted my hand, then withdrew his. “Can you see why she did not want to destroy the relationship, lass?”
I swallowed hard and looked away from Micheil, letting my gaze drift to my grandmother’s garden. “I understand.”
“It was only after she understood your desperate circumstances with Zebulon Deforest that she began having second thoughts. By then, she was aware that you would think she had deserted, betrayed you—”
“Yes, there were times …” I nodded slowly. “So many disappointments when she didn’t acknowledge my questions. That’s especially hard for a child. It seemed no one understood my need to know about my mother and father. Now I must wonder why she didn’t insist to Poppy—or perhaps enlist Selah’s help—to convince him I needed to know the truth.”
“Welsie True had flaws,” Micheil said gently. “She made mistakes, just like the rest of us. In the end, when she realized she was dying, she knew she’d done wrong by you.”
“I loved her even so,” I said.
He gave me a kind smile. “Aye. She knew that about you. She knew your heart.”
Twenty-Four
I rose the next morning at dawn, stopped by the inn kitchen for a hurried breakfast of egg toast and milk, then found a winding path up the hillside at the north of the inn. I hoped it would lead to the plateau and my grandmother’s cottage. It clung to the edge of the cliff, which was covered with yellow-and-pink ice plant on the ocean side and a row of slender eucalyptus trees on the other. I walked slowly to keep myself from tiring, knowing that fatigue led to the lightheaded dizziness and sick stomach I’d experienced lately.