by Delia Parr
While Martha weighed her own needs to have Victoria home against June’s needs, the other woman rushed ahead and continued to plead her case. “It’s only for a few months. We’ll see she eats well, gets plenty of rest, attends meeting every Sunday, saves a good portion of her wages, never leaves the house without a chaperone, and writes to you at least once a week. I—I brought references with me. They’re right upstairs. I have a letter from our pastor, Reverend Blackstone, and another our housekeeper dictated to me since she’s never been schooled in her letters.”
Overwhelmed, Martha suspected she had been out-talked and outmaneuvered, if not outwitted. June had cleverly addressed almost every concern in Martha’s heart, and she just wanted to . . . to hate her.
But she could not.
She just could not.
June Morgan had not prompted the crisis tonight.
If Martha had let Victoria explain about her life in New York City, if she had treated Victoria like a young woman instead of a child, if she had only listened to her daughter, Victoria would not have left the kitchen in tears or issued her own ultimatum.
Martha herself and her all-fired pride and strong maternal emotions had driven her child straight to another woman for comfort tonight, just like she had driven her from home last June.
Truth be told, there was much more at the root of her turmoil that nourished her determination to keep Victoria in Trinity. Her late husband, John, had turned his back on both family and social standing when he quit his studies at Harvard and moved west. He had built a good life for them all as a yeoman farmer, and it was only after his untimely death that his father, Graham Cade, had entered Martha’s life.
She had steadfastly refused all of his efforts to have her move to Boston so he could see to his grandchildren’s welfare, but when Oliver turned fourteen, she could not argue with his decision to go to Boston to begin studying law under his grandfather. Today, he practiced in his grandfather’s law firm.
The irony never ceased to confound her. Oliver now had the life his father had rejected, but to lose Victoria to a city, too, was almost too much to bear. Her eyes filled with tears, and her heart ached with every heavy beat that pounded in her chest.
Had God blessed Martha with these two children, only to have them reject the life both she and John had wanted for them here in Trinity?
Was she being completely selfish?
Probably.
That thought did not sit well, any more than the next thought. At least she and Oliver remained close. He visited at least once a year and always left with her promise she would come to Boston to see him. If she totally alienated Victoria, if she forced Victoria to disobey her and return to New York City without her mother’s blessing, could Martha ever hope to see her again?
The answer cut to the very essence of her spirit.
And if she were honest and fair, she would realize that this was an opportunity for Victoria that Martha could never give to her. She could not ever hope to match the Morgans’ wealth or station. She could not help Victoria to pursue her talents, any more than she could have done for Oliver. Not without Graham Cade.
She could, however, offer Victoria what no one else could—a mother’s love and understanding and encouragement to nurture the gifts the Creator had given to her.
Martha let out a deep sigh and knew what she must do. “I think the water is ready now. If you could fetch those references, I’ll fix the tea. But be careful not to wake Victoria. Not just yet,” she added, just in case June thought Martha was completely ready to give in.
With a relieved and hopeful smile on her face, June rose from her seat. “I think there are some oatmeal cookies left from supper. Do you think Fern and Ivy would mind if we had some? I simply can’t resist sweets.”
Martha chuckled, in spite of herself. No, she could not harbor any ill feelings for this younger woman. Jealousy, perhaps. Even a little envy that a woman who hankered for sweets like June said she did could remain so trim, even when she was teeming.
Loving sweets might be all they really had in common, save for one seventeen-year-old girl who was precious to them both.
Martha finished her third cup of tea and read through all the references again. She reached for another cookie and found it hard to believe the plate was empty. Empty? She groaned and found little solace in what she had read, either.
If she believed only half of what each person had written, she would be forced to put a halo around June Morgan’s head. No one could possibly be that saintly. Or kind. Or generous.
Being skeptical, even with all the references that lay before her, was being cautious, not unfair, and Victoria was too precious, too priceless to risk.
She looked at June and pointed to the letters. “All this is well and good, but references can be . . .” She almost said forged, but caught herself. It would serve no purpose to offend the woman, especially if she were all the references claimed her to be. “The references can be considered, but I’ll have to confirm them, of course. Since we’re so far from New York City, it will take time.”
“Of course. Write to any or all of the people who provided the references. Except for Mrs. O’Malley. She relies on me to do that for her.”
“Beyond that, I still have reservations,” Martha countered.
June wiped the corner of her lips with a napkin. “Please. Go ahead. I’d be happy to answer any questions you have.”
Did the woman have to be so . . . so sweet?
Martha folded her hands and laid them on top of the table and decided to cut right to the vortex of her concern. “How can I be certain you won’t hire Victoria as your permanent replacement so she’ll want to stay in New York instead of returning home to Trinity in the fall?”
“I give you my word,” June responded. “Victoria shows great promise, but she’s still relatively inexperienced. It would be several years before she would be qualified—”
“But she might want to stay on as an assistant, like she is now,” Martha argued.
“I’ll make it clear that staying in any capacity is not an option.” She smiled. “You and I are very much alike, you know. I don’t think Victoria truly realizes that yet.”
“We are,” she insisted when Martha’s mouth dropped open. “We’re both capable, efficient women with a strong sense of duty and faith. We’re both blessed with good constitutions and a strong will that’s both a blessing and curse.”
Martha huffed. “Nevertheless, our worlds couldn’t be more different.”
“True, but it’s what we each do with the gifts we have been given that matters. I was raised to believe that wealth and position are gifts that should be used to benefit many. That’s why I started the magazine. I admire the work you do. Helping sick women and children and delivering babies are gifts, but they’re not mine. And they’re not Victoria’s. They’re yours. But each of our gifts is equal in His sight because He chose to give them to us, and we must all use our gifts to His glory. That’s the message I hope my magazine carries to women everywhere.”
It was a message that touched Martha’s heart and eased some of her reluctance to admit June might be all she had presented herself to be. And more.
An urgent series of knocks at the back door interrupted their conversation, reminding Martha that only that morning Russell Clifford had knocked at that door, summoning her to duty. Fearful that Nancy might have taken a turn for the worse and Russell had returned to summon Martha again, she rushed to the door. Much to her relief, she found young Dr. McMillan shivering outside.
“I s-saw the light and hoped it was y-you. S-still up,” he chattered. “I . . . I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
An uncommonly short man with a wide girth, he must have been out in the cold for some time to have gotten so chilled. His plump cheeks were chafed from the wind and cold, and his nose was the color of ripe summer cherries. He bore a few scars on his face from scratching at the chicken pox, a recent, embarrassing malady, although he had resented Martha
’s nursing more.
At least at first.
“Come in. Come in. You sound half frozen and you look even worse. Come in, but get that snow off your boots, first. I’ll get you some hot tea to warm you up. I think we still have some oatmeal cookies around.” She stepped aside to let him enter.
“Nothing to eat. Just something hot, then we need to talk,” he responded. He stomped his boots to knock off the snow, then came inside.
Concern quickened her heartbeat. He had come to her before with concerns about his patients, but he had never turned down something to eat before, especially some of Fern and Ivy’s treats. She followed him into the kitchen and prayed whatever errand had brought him here so late could either be settled quickly or resolved later.
After she had resolved her dilemma about what to do with Victoria.
As she followed him, she remembered that June was in the kitchen, dressed in her nightclothes. Before Martha could ask him to wait so June could slip upstairs, the doctor was already in the kitchen.
He took one look at June and braced to a sudden halt.
Martha nearly collided with him. “I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you—”
“June? Is that really you?”
She chuckled. “Benjamin! I almost didn’t recognize you. I’m . . . I’m afraid you’ve caught me in my nightclothes. You look frightfully cold. Come. Warm yourself by the fire.”
Absolutely confused, Martha peeked around him, glanced from one to the other, and clamped her gaping mouth shut. Again. Of all the people she expected to be able to confirm June Morgan’s identity and attest to her character, Dr. McMillan would be last in line.
Dead last.
6
Dr. McMillan spun around, and his face was flushed a deeper shade of crimson. He nearly knocked Martha over. Again. Fortunately, she was a bit lighter on her feet than he was. She managed a quick side step and eased around him. She grabbed her cape from the peg on the wall and handed it to June. “Here. Put this on. Apparently, you two know one another so there’s no sense bothering to introduce you.”
Still, the air was wrought with embarrassment for all. Even though the man was a doctor, he rarely, if ever, tended to a woman in her nightclothes. Martha treated most women when they were ill. For very serious cases that required a doctor, propriety demanded that he examine his female patients as they lay in bed fully dressed and covered by the bedclothes.
With her cheeks flaming, too, June donned the cape and sat down again. “You can come in now, Benjamin.”
He hesitated, then turned around and approached the hearth. When he was close, he turned his back to the fire and warmed his hands behind him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know Widow Cade had a guest, let alone . . . I mean, whatever are you doing here in Trinity?”
June chuckled. “It’s a long tale, I’m afraid. I could ask you the same question, though. The last time I saw Charles, he said he’d lost touch with you and hadn’t heard from you in ages.”
Basically ignored and excluded from the exchange, Martha watched and listened to the conversation. Her expression, apparently, prompted June to pause and explain. “Benjamin and my brother, Charles, were friends.”
The doctor nodded. “I’ve gained a few pounds since then, I’m afraid. We went to school together in Boston, and I went home with Charles for several holidays.”
June laughed out loud. “Holidays indeed! Father never quite got over one visit before Charles brought you home for another.” She winked at Martha. “Wealthy young stallions. Both of them. Scouring the herd of equally wealthy young mares, looking for just the right one to claim. Until the next soiree, of course,” she teased.
The doctor puffed out his chest, but Martha still found it hard to imagine this rotund young man as a stallion of any sort. “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I daresay we didn’t find the city boring. Not once. Of course, we always had to bribe a certain someone’s big sister not to give away all our secrets. Till she up and married. Then our secrets were quite safe and certainly cheaper,” he quipped.
“Indeed,” June murmured. “I thought for certain you’d practice in New York when you returned from France after finishing your training there. What changed your mind?”
He dropped his gaze. When he looked up, his sad smile tugged at Martha’s heartstrings. “I married in France. Claudine. She was so young, so very beautiful . . .” He paused to clear his throat. “She died quite suddenly soon after we were married. Somehow, I managed to finish my training. When I went home . . . it was a difficult time. I went into seclusion. I knew if I contacted Charles or other friends, I would only have to explain. . . .”
He paused and cleared his throat. “Grandfather told me his friend in Trinity, Doc Beyer, had passed on. He thought I might try to start my practice here. He was right.”
June paled. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
He waved away her expression of sympathy. “It’s been a while now. I have a new life. A satisfying one. At least I can think back to our short time together and be grateful for the time we did have and . . . and pray that one day I’ll find another woman as special as she was.”
Martha held very still. She could feel in her fingertips the rapid beating of her heart. She never ceased to marvel at how often men and women kept their tragedies private, tucked deep within their hearts, safe from prying gossipers.
Until the past caught up with the present.
No one in Trinity had an inkling of this young man’s apparent wealth or that he was a widower. She stored his secret next to all the others she had learned over the years, so necessary if she was to keep the trust of the folks she treated.
While June and the doctor reminisced about mutual friends, Martha fixed a new plate of cookies and poured a fresh cup of tea for him. “Come. Sit at the table,” she suggested.
June yawned and covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long day full of surprises. I think I’ll take to my bed and let you two talk privately. At this hour, I assume there’s something urgent you need to discuss. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”
While Dr. McMillan went to the table and started to eat, she rose from her seat and adjusted the cape around her shoulders. “I’ll bring this down first thing in the morning, unless . . .”
“No. That’s fine. If I’m called out before then, I can always knock at your door.”
June headed toward the staircase, then paused and turned around. “What about Victoria? Do you want me to wake her and have her move to your room?”
Martha swallowed hard. As much as she wanted to be near Victoria and see her face the moment she opened her eyes in the morning, she shook her head. “Let her sleep. I’ll speak to her in the morning and let her know my decision. You can . . . you can tell her we talked.”
With a grateful smile, June bid them good-night and proceeded up the stairs. Dr. McMillan polished off a cookie and cocked his head. “Did she say Victoria? Your daughter’s home?”
Martha sat down across from him and quickly recounted her tale. “So you see, it appears my girl has come home only to ask my blessing to go back to New York City and live with the Morgans.”
He reached across the table and covered her trembling hands with one of his own. His tender touch and the genuine concern in his eyes caught her off guard. “They’re very fine people.”
“So I’ve been led to believe. From the references she brought with her,” she murmured.
“Sometimes we must remember to love deeply enough to let those we care about most in this world find their own way. It’s too late after they’re gone.”
Martha gently removed her hands and laid them on her lap. His poignant words hinted at yet another element in his tragic loss. The idea that this young man, scarcely older than Oliver, could offer her such wise counsel was unsettling, especially since she had always been the one to offer advice to him in the past. His words, however, brought comfort and would help to make her decision about whether to let Victoria return to New
York City all the easier to consider. She was not quite ready to make that decision. Not quite. “You said we needed to talk?” she asked, changing the direction of their conversation.
He leaned back in his chair and rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. “Before I begin, I’ll ask for your confidence about my late wife. I’m not ready to share—”
“Of course,” she whispered.
He let out a long sigh. “Thank you. Now . . . I’m afraid I have some troubling news.” He looked her straight in the eye, then let out a deep breath. “There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll be blunt. Samuel’s vision is gone. He’s completely blind, and I’m afraid there’s nothing more to be done for him.”
Martha’s heart leaped in her chest. Her mind raced with questions that tumbled out in a rush. “Blind? Are you certain? When did this happen? Why wasn’t I summoned? What happened?”
She paused to drag in several long breaths as her mind tried to sort through her thoughts about Samuel. A recluse since moving to Trinity some years back, Samuel Meeks lived in an isolated cabin in the woods behind the cemetery. With a raised tattoo of a serpent covering one cheek, and other tattoos hidden by shirtsleeves, he had a vocabulary worthy of his former trade, a seaman. He frightened most folks. Except for Martha and Will, a displaced young orphan from New York who made his home with Samuel now.
She had been secretly treating the recluse for nearly a year, but nothing she had tried had cured the ailment that had been slowly claiming his eyesight, and Dr. McMillan’s news was truly disturbing.
The idea of pairing Samuel and Will together some months back, in an effort to keep the boy from running off to sea, had been nothing short of divine inspiration. Martha had been as surprised as anyone else by the depth of the bond that quickly developed between Samuel and the boy. Despite his advanced years, Samuel had just the right spirit and disposition to be able to handle the seven-year-old, who could match Samuel’s salty vocabulary, if not surpass it.
Will’s yearning to follow Samuel’s footsteps into a life at sea had inspired a sort of hero worship that gave Samuel an edge when it came to molding the boy’s character. While watching the reclusive curmudgeon nurture the boy, Martha had seen Samuel evolve into the kind, generous man she knew existed behind the gruff exterior he presented to the rest of the world.