Hidden Affections

by Delia Parr

  Too tired to argue with her, he picked up the Bible he had read during the night whenever he stumbled in his awkward attempts to pray and walked unsteadily to the door. He fumbled to slide the bolt free, opened the door, and stepped aside.

  “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost all your common sense. You’ll only be in my way, so I’ve set a breakfast tray in the library for you. If I’m not finished by the time you’re done eating, you can hide in there until I am.” She entered the room carrying a scrub brush in one hand and a pail of water in the other.

  When she looked up at him, she braced to a halt, sending water sloshing over the brim of the pail. “You look terrible,” she said gently, but her eyes widened when she saw the book he was holding in his hands. “You’re reading the Bible?”

  “Just taking it back to the library,” he offered, reluctant to tell her the truth when he had not quite come to terms with it himself. “I was paging through it when I found a page with my family history that I’d never seen before. Did you give Annabelle the dates to enter for Peter and his family?”

  She nodded. “She said she thought it might be too upsetting for you to do. I asked her why she didn’t add her name next to yours and the date you were married, but she said that it would be up to you to make that entry. I don’t suppose it matters now that you don’t want her anymore.”

  He blew out a long breath, unwilling to let Irene know that he was beginning to think he may have been wrong to do that. “I’ll be in the library. Just knock when you’re done cleaning up in here so I can come back, but leave the bedclothes. They don’t need to be changed.”

  Once he sequestered himself in the library, he bypassed the tray of breakfast food Irene had set on top of the desk and put the Bible back onto the shelf where it belonged. His hand lingered on the spine of the book for a moment before he sat down at the desk. He polished off breakfast without really tasting anything.

  When he noted his muted image staring back at him from the silver coffeepot in the center of the tray, he frowned. The stubble that covered his cheeks reminded him that he had not bothered to shave for days. His eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep, and his hair was a knotted mess. “Irene’s right. I do look terrible,” he said, feeling a bit embarrassed that she had seen him so disheveled. He was grateful she could not see the turmoil that still plagued his spirit and troubled his soul any more than he could, but he felt it as clearly as he would have felt an infection raging through his body.

  He glanced across the room and stared at the Bible he had placed on the shelf. Eventually, when his mind was on the verge of completely shutting down, he knew beyond all doubt that the only cure for the disease that had assaulted his spirit for years lay within the pages of that Bible . . . and his own willingness to open his heart wide enough to embrace the healing grace God offered to him.

  Unfortunately, he was so tired at that point that he knew he would not be able to make his eyes focus on a single printed word until he got some sleep. He picked up the breakfast tray, set it on the floor outside of his door, and turned to go back into the library when Irene called out to him.

  “You can go back into that room again.”

  He watched her walking toward him and was dismayed to see that she was carrying a basket filled with the linens she had removed from the bed. “I asked you not to change the bedclothes. They weren’t soiled.”

  She waited until she was standing right in front of him before she replied. “No, they weren’t, but it doesn’t do you much good to sleep on these. They smell like summer roses,” she said, motioning with the basket in her arms. “They’ll only remind you of Annabelle. I’m certain that’s the last thing you want to do, although anyone who loved her can still feel her presence everywhere in this house.” She hoisted the basket from one hip to the other. “If that bothers you, you can always leave and move back to the city. The rest of us have to stay here and live with the fact that she’s gone,” she whispered and walked away.

  Before the echo of her words had faded, he was back in Annabelle’s room with the two things that kept him from returning to the city: his family Bible and the diary Annabelle had given him that he intended to start keeping very soon.

  Early the next day, Harrison had just finished saying morning prayers, a ritual he wanted to make routine, when Irene knocked at his door.

  “Get out of bed, get dressed, and eat some breakfast. I’m leaving it on a tray outside of your door. And don’t dawdle. We’re all leaving for church in an hour, and I’m not going to arrive late because you couldn’t get ready in time.”

  He furrowed his brow. Unless he had completely lost track of the days, which was entirely possible, today was Saturday, and he had no idea why everyone would be getting ready for services that would not be held until tomorrow. He walked over to the door and opened it, just in time to see Irene reach the main staircase.

  “It’s Saturday. Why is everyone going to church?” he asked, not quite certain he could attend services in the church where he would be surrounded by more memories of Annabelle.

  She looked down the hall at him and smiled. “Reverend Bingham sent word the day before yesterday that he’s getting married today. Apparently, he’s invited the entire congregation.”

  Absolutely certain the last thing he needed was to witness a couple exchanging their marriage vows, he squared his shoulders. “I’m not going to the church, but you can give Reverend Bingham my best regards,” he said firmly.

  To his surprise, Irene smiled at him. “I’ll tell him, but I think I’ll let him find out for himself that you don’t have much respect for the institution of marriage. In all truth, I didn’t really expect you’d want to go, so I invited Philip to represent you. I don’t know how long we’ll be, but I’ll leave some dinner in the kitchen for you,” she said sweetly before she walked away.

  He was annoyed by her new ability to give him a lecture with words dripping with sweetness, but he was completely irritated that she had taken the liberty of inviting Philip to attend in his place. Too busy to waste time on such distractions, he shut his door and returned to the spiritual battle he thought he was beginning to win.

  Several hours later, he got up from his knees and sat down in front of the fire. When he finally set the Bible aside, he felt completely at peace. He had never questioned the existence of God, but now that he had welcomed Him into his life and asked His forgiveness for going so far astray from the Word, Harrison was nearly ready to tackle an equally difficult task: asking Annabelle to forgive him, too.

  Although he was not ready yet to ask her if she would be willing to consider becoming a permanent part of his life, he prayed he would soon be blessed with the courage to take that risk and fully believe God would help him keep his faith strong when life’s troubles tested it. The best way he could think of to focus on the blessings he had already received would be to start recording them in his diary.

  Before he started writing, however, he stopped long enough to walk out to the kitchen to get his dinner without worrying about seeing anyone else. He finished up a platter of sliced ham and corn relish that Irene had set out for him, but looked at the three desserts lined up on the other end of the table and wrinkled his nose. He did not know whether it was the plum pudding, the plum strudel, or the butter cookies topped with plum jam that was the most unappealing, but he bypassed them all.

  Still hankering for something sweet, he gave up and started down the basement steps when he was struck by an idea. He bounded back up the steps and went outside without bothering with a coat. He had to search the woods for a good while before he found the size branch he wanted. Once he did, he went straight to the toolshed to get the proper tools before he hurried back to the cottage.

  Once he was back in Annabelle’s room, he locked the door behind him. He had not whittled a stick since he was a boy, but once he sat down and gave it a try, he was surprised at how quickly he remembered the techniques his older brother had taught him. He did not know how servi
ceable the implement he was making would be, any more than he knew if he would actually finish it. Still, the task was a way to keep focused on doing something with his hands, and he found the work cathartic.

  It was late afternoon when he finished. His fingers only bore a couple of small cuts and nicks he barely felt, and he was not displeased with his efforts, in spite of the fact the final product was extremely crude.

  He slipped the knitting stick into his pocket to keep a reminder of Annabelle close to him, but he did not bother to clean up the wood shavings on the floor. Instead, he walked straight to the lady’s writing desk and picked up the diary he had brought with him from the library. As he walked over to his chair, he thumbed through the pages, wondering how long it would take to fill this diary, but stopped abruptly. The pages were not empty at all. Nearly all of them were filled with entries, and after he read just a few, he realized the handwriting belonged to Annabelle, who had made a daily record of the blessings she called her treasures.

  Ashamed that he had invaded her most private thoughts, even inadvertently, he pressed the leather covers together and held it tight in his fist. Too late, he remembered that his diary was identical to hers, but he did not have to think very hard to know that it was Irene who must have switched the diaries. The only question he really had was how or why Annabelle had left her diary behind at all when it was so very important to her.

  He put the diary back onto the writing desk and returned to sit by the fire. He deeply regretted reading several of the entries, but he was overwhelmed that his name appeared on nearly every one of them. If she once thought that he was a blessing to her, would she be able to think that again, in spite of what he had done to her? If he had the courage to ask her to come back to him, would she? Or would she send him away, unable to forgive him now and forever?

  He took the knitting stick he had made out of his pocket and turned it over and over in his hands. He was lost in his own thoughts and torn with indecision when loud but familiar voices and pounding footsteps coming down the hall toward his room interrupted him.

  “I told you to stay downstairs,” Irene cried.

  “I’m going to see my cousin, whether he wants to see me or not. I haven’t done anything to be ashamed of, which is not something he can claim,” Philip argued. “Annabelle shouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life alone because he’s a complete dolt.”

  “Are you daft? He’ll strangle you with his own hands if he ever finds out you proposed to Annabelle,” she argued. “You don’t even know how long it will be before she’s free to remarry.”

  “That’s what I intend to find out. Right now.”

  Harrison charged to the door, had the bolt free before he felt the next heartbeat, and swung the door open so hard it hit the wall and would have bounced back to hit him if he had not caught it with his hand. He glared at his cousin, who was just within arm’s reach, and he had to clench his fists to keep from slugging him right in the nose. “You proposed? You actually proposed? To my wife?” he snarled.

  While Irene had the sense to back away, Philip took one step closer and glared back at him. “Why do you care? You obviously don’t want her. At least I can sleep at night knowing I made an effort to find her and make sure she was all right after you decided to set her aside instead of hiding in my room like you have.”

  “I’m not hiding,” Harrison gritted. He squared his shoulders. “Where is she?”

  “If you really want to find her, you’ll plumb have to do it without my help,” Philip argued. “I just plumb promised her that I wouldn’t tell you. Besides, I’m not going to let you spoil my chances of changing her mind any more than I’m going to give up asking her again and again until she plumb gives up and says yes.”

  Harrison looked past his cousin to Irene, who wore a guilt-ridden expression. “I can’t tell you either, I plumb promised I wouldn’t tell you, either, and you’re plumb crazy if you think I’m going to break that promise. I already broke too many others.”

  Frustrated to the point of complete exasperation, he threw up his hands. “Stop being so fixated on the word plum! Just tell me where she is, and I promise you, she’ll forgive you for breaking your promise, assuming she can forgive me for what I’ve done. But I can’t even talk to her unless you tell me where she is.”

  Irene grinned. “You’re a plumb smart man. If you truly want her badly enough, you’ll figure it out,” she replied and tugged on Philip’s arm. “Come downstairs with me. I’ll fix you up with some nice warm plum pudding. I learned how to make it just last week when I was visiting my friend in the city,” she murmured, placing uncommon emphasis on the word friend.

  Harrison slammed the door but only took a few steps before it hit him. “Widow Plum! She’s staying with Widow Plum!” He grabbed the one thing he needed to take with him before he charged back into the hall.

  Both Irene and Philip had disappeared from the second floor, but she was waiting for him when he reached the bottom of the stairs in the foyer. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  He grinned. “I’ve got a sudden hankering for plums.”

  She handed him his coat. “It’s about time you figured it out. Graham is out front with the coach. Don’t you dare come back without her.”

  “I don’t intend to,” he replied, filled with faith enough to believe he could convince her to stay.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Grateful that the boarders would not be returning for supper for another two hours, Annabelle left Widow Plum, who was dusting the furniture in the parlor, to change the bed linens in two of the sleeping rooms on the second floor. She climbed up the steep wooden staircase with a heavy heart and weary footsteps.

  Unfortunately, the fog of despair that was clouding her faith today made it almost impossible for her to think about anything other than the pain of any future without Harrison. After setting the fresh bed linens on top of a trunk at the foot of the bed, she folded up the faded quilt, set it onto the trunk as well, stripped the soiled bedclothes, and laid them in a pile on the floor. I wish I could change my life this easily, she thought as she tucked in fresh sheets around the edge of the mattress.

  Satisfied with her work, she picked up the soiled sheets, unaware that she was dragging one on the floor until she tripped and fell to her knees. Although her one knee landed on top of the bundled sheets, her other knee cracked hard enough on the bare floorboards to bring tears to her eyes. The impact opened the floodgates she had been guarding all day, and once she started to cry, she simply could not stop and she had to bury her face in the sheets she was carrying to silence the sobs that made her body tremble and her spirit flood with grief.

  When the spring that provided her tears finally drained, she wiped her face and got back to her feet. Exhausted, she also felt oddly refreshed, but she knew her tears would be replenished long before she would be able to hold them back again. She limped for a few steps to test out her knee and sighed with relief. The last thing she needed was to injure herself now when she had to convince someone to hire her.

  She had just stripped the soiled bedclothes from the bed in the room across the hall when she heard Widow Plum call out her name. “Annabelle, dear. You have a caller.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, excited that Irene had returned so soon for a visit. She was also pleased that she had already written out the reference for Irene to sign and quickly finished restoring the bed to order.

  Though her vision was nearly blocked, Annabelle was determined to carry both sets of soiled bedclothes downstairs. She held on to the banister with one hand as she shifted the bundle of sheets so she would not trip down the steps.

  Descending carefully, she peeked above the mound of linens and her heart practically stopped. Harrison was standing at the bottom of the stairs. She tightened her hold on the banister when he took the first step without taking his eyes off of her.

  “You forgot something, so I thought I should bring it to you,” he said quietly.


  She swallowed hard. With the sheets blocking all but his face, she could not see what he was carrying in his hand. She trembled to think he had found her diary, but the possibility that he had read it made her knees weak. “You can give the diary to Widow Plum to hold for me,” she whispered, hoping he would leave before she lost her dignity and begged him to stay.

  He took another step. “Widow Plum is in the kitchen, and your diary is safe back at Graymoor Gardens. This is something else entirely.”

  She could not imagine she had left anything else behind, but before she could tell him that, he was one step higher on the staircase and close enough now that she could see that his eyes were gazing at her with the same deep affection she had hidden from him for so long.

  Her heart began to race when he took the next three steps, stopping when his face was level with hers. After he gently removed the sheets from her hands and tossed them over the banister, he placed a wooden object into her hand, and from the cuts on the tips of his fingers, she knew he had made it for her.

  Through tear-filled eyes, she glanced down and saw a very crudely made knitting stick that made her heart swell the moment she saw her first name engraved down the center. Her fingers were trembling so hard, she had a difficult time turning the knitting stick over. On the back, she saw her name engraved above the year 1832.

  She struggled to find her voice. “Is this . . . is this a courtship gift?” she asked, overwhelmed by the possibility that he might want her to be a part of his life.

  His dark eyes glistened when he captured her gaze and held it captive. “Only if our courtship is short. Very, very short,” he said. “I love you, Annabelle. I was so very, very wrong to think I could ever live without you. I want you to know that I’ve made my peace with God, and I know now that He never stopped loving me or watching over me, even when I turned my back on Him. And I also trust that He will love us and comfort us, no matter what troubles life has in store for us.” Harrison took one more step.