"He was tall, like you, Jakob, but his hair was dark... not as dark as mine once was. Etham and Lydia got their coloring from me.... Lydia got her height from him, though."
Lydia exchanged a look with her mother. Christine's pale face showed her weariness. The old woman's ramblings were taking their toll on everyone.
"I remember how he looked the day he came to get me," she continued. "We lived down by Carbon... My daddy raised pigs on Sugar Creek. I had met him the summer before, when he and his daddy came and bought dressed hogs."
Etham stared at her as if she were hallucinating. "Mutter; I've never heard of those places."
"No. You have only heard the story of your father's people, who came from Germany. That history keeps our purpose firm—My parents were from Ireland."
This new angle to the familiar story had Lydia's complete attention. "He came to your parents' home for you? How did he know you'd go with him?"
"He didn't. He said he was going to start a new town in Pennsylvania... said he'd be pleased if I'd come along as his wife and help him build a town."
"What did you do?"
"Well, I thought he had grand plans. I didn't know if he could really do it—I asked my daddy what he thought. He said I was old enough to think on my own." She snickered. "I was seventeen. He had seven other mouths to feed."
"So you left with him, just like that?" Lydia asked. Grandmother had been just a child. Lydia had never experienced want or hunger, and couldn't imagine a father relieved to have one less person to feed.
"Matthaus took me back to New Harmony, and we were one of twelve couples Father Rapp married. Others who were already married wanted to start over, so we came here. Lean years... The men tried to take jobs to feed everyone until the gardens came in and the stock was bred."
Grandmother's paper-thin eyelids closed. Lydia watched the shallow movement of her chest.
"Plenty of nights we went to bed with our bellies growling," she whispered. "Nobody'd hire our men, of course." She smiled at some faraway memory of pleasure. "But we had one another."
Silence engulfed the room. Jakob swallowed so loud, Lydia looked up, and their misty gazes met in understanding.
"You children have my blessing," Grandmother said, and slipped into sleep.
Lydia bit her lip, blinked back tears and glanced at her father. Etham's hard expression seemed to fade in the lantern-light. She knew that his orderly, systematic concepts were battling with the information he'd digested. His own mother was an Outsider! To Lydia, it made perfect sense, answered puzzling questions. It explained the old woman's extraordinary comments and capacities.
Jakob yawned and idly tapped the gun barrel on his knee. He grinned at her, and she felt the warmth of his concern for her across the room. At long last she understood her grandmother's advice to follow her heart. Loving Jakob as she did, she would be happy anywhere he was. Anywhere they could be together. She recalled the vows they'd repeated after Reverend Mercer: in sickness, trouble and sorrow... in plenty and in want... for better or for worse... as long as we both shall live.
There was no room for doubt; she would love Jakob until her dying day, just as Rose had loved Matthaus.
Just before daylight, Grandmother's tortured breathing roused them all. Christine and Rachael knelt at the other side of the cot. Nathan appeared in the doorway, hair tousled. Etham sat at his mother's feet, and the gun remained inert on Jakob's knee. Lydia's chest felt as though one of the horses were standing on it, crushing her heart.
As dawn broke beyond the closed shutters, Rose Beker's agonized breathing ended in one forcefully exhaled gust. Etham gently closed her mouth with a trembling hand. Lydia stared at her grandmother's still, bloodless face and pressed the hand she held against her lips. Her father covered his face with his hands. Rachael and Nathan helped their weeping mother stand.
A pain so intense that she wanted to stand and scream hysterically stole Lydia's composure. Her mind locked on the person who had been dearest to her. The person who had comforted her childish fears, humored her youthful moods, understood and encouraged her mature dreams. Never again would those gold-flecked eyes twinkle with mirth. Never again would they see a field of wildflowers, or a pink-and-silver sky at sunrise.
Her grandmother had been her friend, her... kindred spirit. Her misery was so complete that Lydia couldn't cry for what seemed hours, though only minutes passed. When the wave hit, it crashed around her, sweeping her with it. Her body shook with great racking sobs that tore at her lungs. She clung to the lifeless hand and sobbed her grief against the patterned wedding quilt.
A gentle touch on her shoulder broke through her anguish, and she raised her head. Jakob knelt at her side, his face reflecting her suffering. Without a spoken word, she turned into his arms, clung to the front of his shirt and buried her face in his familiar warmth and scent.
He pressed her head against his chest. Etham looked up from his own quiet reverie and saw the incongruous vision. One of Jakob's hands held the gun steadily against the back of Lydia's head. The other stroked her back comfortingly, kneaded her waist.
"Lydia, darlin', don't make yourself sick."
"I am s-sick."
"I know." He attempted to lift her from the floor. "C'mon. Let's sit up."
"I c-can't, Jakob. I didn't know anything c-could feel this awful." She kept her face buried against his shirt, muffling her sobs. Her hair came loose from its last mooring, and the tumbled skein fell over his arm. He stroked it over her shoulder, his callused fingers absently working through the knots.
"You know, the apostle Paul wrote that death is swallowed up in victory. Know why I think he said that? Because death itself is the reward. Your grandma lived her whole life with that in mind. This is her reward. She's not suffering now. Her hands don't hurt. She doesn't miss your granddad. You're the one suffering. She's exactly where she wants to be."
Lydia raised her head. Her eyes, swollen and red-rimmed, beseeched him. "Oh, Jakob, I know you're right. I—" a hiccup rocked her "—remember her saying that nothing would be better than her life with my grandfather except their reward in heaven together. She wasn't afraid of dying, was she?"
"No, darlin', she wasn't."
Lydia shuddered as she inhaled. Turning in Jakob's embrace, she glanced at the slight figure on the cot. Her gaze met Etham's across the narrow bed. He looked as taken aback as she'd felt the first time she heard Jakob talk about God and quote Scripture. Jakob was not the heathen the Harmonists presumed him to be.
Etham glanced between Lydia and her husband. The three of them came to their feet. Lydia's hair hung in disarray across one shoulder and down her back. She wore a rumpled pale dress with chains of flowers in the patterned fabric. A matching yellow ribbon hung sorrily from a fallen lock of hair. Jakob had eyes only for her beautiful, tear-streaked face. The .45 hung against his thigh, where his hand had fallen as they stood.
Lydia went to her mother. Rachael turned her tear-stained face to observe her father and brother-in-law. Her eyes carefully avoided her grandmother.
"I will help you prepare her," Lydia said to her mother.
Christine nodded.
Etham and Jakob stared at one another's weary faces after the others left the room.
"Will I need this?" Jakob raised the barrel.
"Out of respect for my mother, I will not make a spectacle of her burial. You keep that... weapon... out of sight until she is decently buried."
"As long as you don't try to make Lydia leave before she's ready. She needs to be with her ma now."
Etham nodded.
Jakob had done it. He'd brought Lydia to her grandmother's bedside and seen to it she was with her until the end. Now he'd give her this time with her mother, and accompany her to the burial. It was the least he could do.
He holstered the Peacemaker.
Chapter 21
Etham had posted the time for his mother's burial: three o'clock on this splendid fall day.
Lydia and Mutter
pressed clothing for Grandmother and arranged her hair beneath her cap, making the undertaker's task a simple one.
Nathan invited Jakob to observe the construction of the casket. The pieces of hardwood already cut and finished, the carpenter had only to assemble the box and tack in a dull black liner. As always, Jakob was impressed with the organization and efficiency of the Rappites. Afterward, he and Nathan saddled horses and rode west, across the stream. They returned for the service, their arms laden with the last of the season's wildflowers. Together they strewed them across the head of the grave.
Lydia, pale in a gray day dress and a white Norman cap, stood between her sisters. Faith clung to her mother's skirts. Jakob, in his woolen jacket the color of burnt umber, stood a head taller than Nathan. A dozen other colonists attended.
Each grave in the burial garden was defined with a border of the colony's red clay bricks buried endwise. There were no markers, no headstones, nothing to identify one plot from another. In death no one stood apart from their fellow believers, any more than they had in life. Jakob thought the special old woman deserved a more remarkable burial and resting place.
The service was entirely in German, and painfully short. Donning his Stetson, Jakob turned to follow the women and children, but noticed that Etham hadn't moved with them. He realized the unpleasant task facing the man, and compassion softened his heart.
Vater Beker placed his Bible on the ground and shrugged out of his dark blue dress jacket. He looked up in surprise as Jakob approached.
Jakob gestured toward the shovels. "This is your job?"
The older man nodded.
Jakob took off his own jacket and reached for a shovel.
Etham watched wordlessly as Jakob tossed a shovelful of earth into the hole. Another shovelful, and Jakob looked up to see a pensive and almost embarrassed look on his father-in-law's face. Etham grabbed a shovel and worked doggedly, sweat breaking out on his forehead. After a time, he leaned on the shovel, watching Jakob move dirt effortlessly, and mopped his face. "I am not a tyrant, Herr Neubauer."
Jakob raised one arm above his head and caught a trickle of perspiration from his temple with his shoulder.
"I do what I must in order to earn the respect of the colonists," Lydia's father said.
Jakob wanted to ask if they respected breaking hearts, but out of respect for the old woman in the dirt at their feet, he kept silent.
"At an early age I knew my leadership would be compared. I drove myself to be a more worthy, more dedicated leader than my father. I have not failed. Accord is a thriving, productive community. The Harmonists own major shares in two railroads. We enjoy diplomatic relations with state officials."
Exasperated, Jakob couldn't keep silent any longer. "What do you want me to say?" He packed earth with the back of the shovel, straightened, and tilted his hat back from his forehead. '"Well done, good and faithful servant?' I'm not God. I can't judge you."
"Yeah, okay," Jakob continued. "You accomplished those things, but what's important? What about keepin' Lydia from her family? Do your followers respect that? Or would they have respected a little compassion when your ma was dying? What's so sinful about a little human warmth? Your children are begging for a loving touch."
"You don't understand our ways."
"No, I don't. And I don't want to. I'll never understand not comforting someone you love with a hug. I'll never understand not showing the woman you love she sets your blood on fire." Jakob stabbed the shovel into the earth and picked up his jacket. "That's the difference between us. I admit to all those human things."
Jakob took a step and turned back. "And I want you to know we'll be back."
Etham's dark eyes met his. Perspiration rolled down his temple. "Will you bring your gun?"
"Will I need it?"
The older man raised his arm and blotted his forehead on his rolled up sleeve. "I will pray about it."
"You once told me I'd be sorry. Well, I'm not. Not one damned bit sorry. But I think you are." Jakob turned and strode away from the garden.
The family didn't take their meal in the main dining hall that evening. After a simple supper Lydia helped her mother prepare, Etham donned his shoes and jacket and left. Immediately the tension drained from the atmosphere.
Lydia's siblings were enthralled by Jakob, and obviously fascinated by his speech, mannerisms and clothing. Nathan asked numerous questions about plants, trees and soils.
"Jakob, how do you understand so much about crossbreeding and conserving soil?" Lydia asked, drying a teacup.
"I went to the Agricultural University in Philadelphia for a year. Lived with a nice family, attended classes, wore shirts and ties." He grinned. "Whole ball of wax."
The look of puzzlement on Nathan's face caught his attention, and Jakob laughed. "He gets the same expression on his face you do, darlin'."
He used the endearment without thought. Lydia met her mother's eyes, and blushed.
Shyly Lydia's young brother Amos approached Jakob with a book.
"Whatcha got there, pardner?" Jakob casually draped his arm over the boy's shoulder as they both examined the pages. "Birds, eh? I like birds, too."
Lydia saw her young brother's gaze fall to the hand dangling over his shoulder, then dart up to Jakob's face in apparent worship. Her chest ached with empathy for her younger brothers and sisters, for the simple pleasure of the loving touch they'd been denied their short, hollow lives. They were starved for the attention Jakob gave them, just as she had been. Silently she thanked God for her good fortune.
"In fact," Jakob continued, "I had a bird-nest collection when I was a young'n like you. My mama found 'em in a drawer and set up such a ruckus you could have heard it clear over here. I had to keep them in the barn after that, and it wasn't near as much fun."
Caught up in the story, Faith inched closer to Jakob. "Did you have sisters and brothers when you were a young'n?" she asked, mimicking Jakob's pronunciation.
"Never had a sister, but I have two brothers."
"Did they have bird nests, too?"
"No..." He leaned back and scratched his chin, and Lydia realized she'd forgotten to pack his razor. "Seems like I remember Anton havin' a box of rocks—fieldstones mostly. A few chunks of iron ore and manganese. He kept a jar of old clock parts, too." He laughed. "Franz liked marbles. We always fought over the best ones."
"What are marbles?" Amos asked.
"Little glass balls. It's a game you play by drawing a circle in the dirt and—"
"Children," Mutter said, interrupting, "you must allow Herr Neubauer to rest. You have asked him questions all evening. Prepare yourselves for bed."
Immediately Amos and Faith said good-night and left the kitchen.
Jakob raised a brow at his wife. "Think our children will mind like that?" he asked when she neared.
"Not if they take after you," she whispered.
"Rachael," her mother said, "help me prepare Grandmother's room. Jakob may sleep in there, and Lydia may set up her old cot in your room."
"Mutter," Lydia said, "perhaps Jakob and I should go home."
"You have not slept," her mother reminded her. "Unless you object." Her blue gaze swept from her daughter to Jakob. She seemed unwilling to let them go.
"Fine with me, if it's what Lydia wants," Jakob replied.
Lydia nodded. She and Jakob helped sort through Grandmother's meager belongings. A long, uncomfortable silence engulfed them when Christine folded the wedding quilt and placed it on the pile of bedding near the door. Mutter's eyes swam with tears.
Lydia recognized her pain, and her mother's helplessness angered her. She knew her mother must be torn between allegiance to her husband and love for her daughter, and had to be frustrated at her inability to do anything about it.
"It's all right," Lydia said softly. "I know Father means for Rachael to have the quilt now. It's only a worldly possession. Why, it'll probably be worn out by the time she has children of marrying age."
Mutter
dipped her hand into her apron pocket and withdrew a small object. In Lydia's hand she placed a tiny pair of silver embroidery scissors easily recognizable as Grandmother's. Lydia closed her fingers over the scissors and smiled. Her father would never miss them.
Christine and Rachael carried out bedding and clothes that would be turned in to the exchange. What a pitifully short time it took to extinguish all traces of Rose Beker's existence. Lydia's gaze lingered on the empty coat hooks near the door, and she patted the scissors in her pocket, taking comfort from them and from her mother's gesture. Jakob lowered his tall frame to the cot and tugged at his boot. Lydia noticed his concerned expression, brushed his hands aside and grasped his boot heel. "What are you thinking?"
He leaned back, both arms braced behind him, and pulled in the opposite direction. "Wondering if you have any regrets."
His foot popped out of the boot, and she hobbled to catch her balance. "Regrets?"
Frowning, she lifted his other boot, applied the same procedure and set it beside the first, gazing at his stockinged feet. She remembered helping him out of his boots the day before, as sunlight filtered through the autumn leaves overhead, and suddenly it seemed an intimate act.
Jakob yanked the gray blanket from the cot and folded it into a tidy square, placing it where his head would lie in place of a pillow, which no one in the colony had heard of. Lydia touched his sleeve, and he turned.
"You're thinking I'm sorry about the things of hers I can't have?"
He took her hand from his sleeve and kissed her fingers. His unshaven upper lip prickled. She'd never seen him with the golden stubble. The growth lent him a reckless appearance she liked.
"I'm not sorry, Jakob. I'm glad I made the decisions I did. You've given me so much more."
He gathered her into his arms and kissed her. The minor irritation of his mustache immediately forgotten, his ardent mouth ignited a fire in her body. Slanting his head, he lifted his arms, allowing her hands access to his back. Lydia's blood tingled at an increasing rate. Images of their recent encounters inspired her to press herself against his muscled body and relish the temporary satisfaction of his hard chest flattening her breasts.
Cheryl St.John - [Neubauer Brothers 01] Page 24