by Bess McBride
Jeremiah leaned toward her and lowered his voice. “Harry may be onto something. It is possible that his daughter and granddaughter—your own ancestors—may be willing to meet with you more than they would a stranger.”
“Wait. You don’t mean that I should tell them about me, do you? I can’t even imagine trying to explain this.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “No, not at all, but Harry seems to sense something about you—perhaps a kinship in every sense of the word. I am a practical man and not prone to mystical musings, but I saw that your great-grandfather was drawn to you. I cannot assume that to be coincidence.”
Leigh couldn’t help but tease. “You don’t think it was just my charming personality?” she said with a grin.
To her surprise, Jeremiah’s cheeks colored. “There is that, of course.”
Leigh caught her breath. “I was only kidding, Jeremiah!”
“I was not.”
“Oh!” Leigh looked down at her sandwich and nibbled at it, her cheeks as red as Jeremiah’s.
They finished their food in silence, and Leigh drank her cup of coffee.
“Do you know how to find Nancy and Rosanna?” she finally asked.
“I shall stop at the post office. They will know where to find them.”
“But will they tell you?”
“I certainly hope so. Orting is a very friendly town. Everyone knows everyone, as they do here in Kaskade.”
“I was thinking of privacy laws, but I guess those aren’t a big thing right now.”
“Ah yes! Privacy laws. Tanya mentioned something similar regarding patient privacy. I gather they are very strict about such things in your time.”
Leigh winced. Tanya again.
“They are.” She changed the subject. “Who will take care of Harry while we’re gone? Mrs. Jackson?”
“I have given that some thought. I think I will walk around to John and Katherine’s house and ask if she can watch over him for the day. I know Mrs. Jackson will not mind checking in on him, but she cannot watch over him all day. I could not imagine strapping him down to the bed, but I see that you created a barrier. Thank you.”
“I hope it holds and that he doesn’t fall out again.”
“It looks quite secure. I would still like someone to keep watch on him as much as possible right now, though, to ensure that he eats and drinks and to help him to the bathroom.”
“I agree.”
“Would you like to accompany me to John and Katherine’s?” Jeremiah asked. “Mrs. Jackson can watch over him for bit.”
“Sure!”
“Very well. Let me go get her. We can collect your hat on the way out the door.”
Leigh waited until Mrs. Jackson came into the room. She picked up the plate and coffee cup to return to the kitchen, but the housekeeper told her to leave them.
“I will take them down later.”
“I don’t mind taking them down, Mrs. Jackson,” Leigh said.
“Very well. Just leave them in the sink.”
Mrs. Jackson stood looking down at Harry.
“You seem to know Harry,” Leigh said. “Do you know him well?”
“I’ve known Harry since I was a girl,” she said. “I was very fond of him once, but he married another girl.”
“I didn’t realize that,” Leigh said. “He married Mary Anne Moore, right?”
Mrs. Jackson turned a startled face on Leigh. “How did you know that?”
“I thought you knew. There’s been so much going on that maybe I didn’t tell you.” She lowered her voice. “It seems that Harry here is my fourth great-grandfather.”
Mrs. Jackson gasped and turned to look at Harry. “Are you sure? That has never happened before that we’re aware of.”
“You mean travelers meeting their own ancestors?”
Mrs. Jackson nodded. “Of course, it makes sense if one thinks about it. Your family must have stayed in the area.”
“Yes, they did. My mother liked to research our family’s history, and I used to listen to her when I was little. While I didn’t remember Harry’s name off the top of my head, once paired with his daughter, Nancy Reid, and her daughter, Rosanna—my third and second great-grandmothers—I knew he was Nancy’s father.”
“Well, if that doesn’t beat all,” Mrs. Jackson said. “I’ll say nothing bad about Mary Anne Moore, mind you.”
“What does that mean?” Leigh asked. “Does that mean you want to say something or that you don’t have anything bad to say about her?”
“Well, she was your ancestress, so...” Mrs. Jackson left the words hanging.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Mrs. Jackson sighed. “There is nothing to say. I think the doctor is waiting downstairs on you.”
Leigh had forgotten, and she sprung into action, hurrying for the door.
“Thank you for watching him,” she said. As she made her way down the hall and descended the stairs, she wondered what Mrs. Jackson had been close to saying but hadn’t.
Jeremiah awaited her by the front door, holding the straw sailor hat Mrs. Jackson had loaned her.
“Is everything all right?” he asked, handing her the hat. “I thought something must have occurred to keep you.”
Leigh stopped in front of the hall mirror and secured the hat on her head with a hatpin. “Everything is fine. Sorry, I was chatting with Mrs. Jackson and forgot the time.”
Leigh declined to ask him what he knew about Mary Anne Moore Johnson, if anything, instead following him out the door. They walked down the lane bordering the lake until they reached a smaller but tidy two-story pale-blue cottage on the same road. Jeremiah stopped at a white picket fence and opened the gate, holding it for Leigh.
“Oh! This is close!” Leigh exclaimed. “I’m glad to see that.”
“Yes. John inherited this house from his parents. His father was a manager at the timber mill. John could not afford this on his salary as a minister.”
“Where is the church?”
“Just up the hill. Do you see the spire?” Jeremiah pointed to a brightly painted white building up the hill near where she would have parked her car. “It is next to the school.”
“Yes, I do see it. Pretty,” she said.
She followed him up a brick paved path toward a porch. The wooden door swung open wide, and Katherine came out accompanied by a tall blond man slipping into a dark jacket. Two blond children clung to her skirts, and she tousled their heads as she waited for Jeremiah and Leigh to climb the steps.
“Welcome!” Katherine said. The sleeves of her white high-necked blouse were rolled up, and a blue-and-white gingham apron covered her dark-blue skirt. She must have changed when she got home.
“Is Harry all right?” she asked.
“He is sleeping right now,” Jeremiah answered. “I do not think he suffered overly much during the fall.”
He bent down to eye the towheaded children. “Good afternoon, Missy. Good afternoon, Matthew.”
“Hello,” they responded in unison. Favoring their father in looks, they smiled like their mother.
“Leigh, this is my husband, John Ludlow, and these are our children, Missy, who is six, and Matthew, who is four.”
Leigh thrust out her hand, and John shook it.
“Welcome, Leigh. I have already heard so much about you.”
She looked down at the children. “Hello, Missy and Matthew,” she said.
They smiled shyly, and Matthew held up a hand in a wave.
“Would you like some lemonade?” Katherine asked. “I can bring some out to the porch.”
“Yes, that would be most welcome,” Jeremiah said. “I admit I have come with a request.”
“Oh?” Katherine hesitated upon turning to reenter the house. “What’s that?”
“It can wait until you return.”
“John will entertain you. I’ll be right back. Kids, go play in the yard. Daddy will watch you.”
The little ones scampered down the steps towar
d several balls lying in the front yard, and John gestured Jeremiah and Leigh toward some cushioned wicker chairs on the porch.
“It is a fine afternoon, is it not?” John asked.
“Indeed, a rare day without rain,” Jeremiah said.
“Is there something I can help you with, or do you require Katherine’s assistance?”
“My request is to Katherine. I am sure she will have told you that Harry is at my house and of his news that he has family of whom we were not previously aware. Leigh and I wish to travel up to Orting tomorrow to seek them out, and I hoped to ask Katherine to care for him during the day.”
“I am sure she would be delighted to do so,” John said. “The children can remain here with me while I work on my sermon for Sunday. She did tell me all the news as best she could given that little pitchers have big ears.” He smiled and nodded toward the children now racing about and chasing their balls.
“Then she no doubt told you that Leigh, by the strangest coincidence imaginable, is related to Harry. He is her fourth great-grandfather. Is that not remarkable?”
“It is, truly.” John, blue eyed with a well-groomed blond mustache, smiled at Leigh. “I cannot tell you how delighted Katherine is to have another lady arrive. She was quite taken with you.”
Leigh’s cheeks colored. “I’m happy that she’s here.”
“Two other people have stayed,” he said. “Though Jeremiah may have told you that already.”
“Mrs. Jackson mentioned a few people had. I’d like to meet them someday.”
“I will facilitate introductions soon,” Jeremiah said.
Katherine returned with a tray of glasses, which she set down on a small wooden table. She had removed her apron and took the remaining chair.
The lemonade was delicious, reminding Leigh of the freshly squeezed lemonade her grandmother had made.
“This is wonderful, Katherine,” she said.
Katherine smiled and quirked an eyebrow. “Fresh, not frozen, right?”
Leigh laughed. “Just what I was thinking.”
“So what was your request?” she asked Jeremiah. “Did you tell John?”
“I did, but my request was for you. You were in the room when Harry extracted a promise from us to contact his daughter and granddaughter, were you not?”
Katherine nodded.
“I feel it is vital to his recovery that I contact them as soon as possible, and to that end, Leigh and I hoped to travel to Orting tomorrow. I wished to ask you to watch over Harry for us at my house. Mrs. Jackson can check on him once in a while, but I feel he needs close observation just now. We would return before nightfall.”
“Of course I will come.” She threw Leigh a cautious look before speaking. “Jeremiah, is Harry going to live? You told him that he was.”
Jeremiah glanced at Leigh as well before speaking. “I wish I could say. His breathing is not good. I’m sorry, Leigh. I know that I’ve indicated that he would not die, but I cannot say so for certain. I think that he is agitated, and I want him to rest. If asking his daughter to visit him would ease his anxiety, so much the better.”
“I did not even realize that he had living family,” John said. “How could I not have known that?”
“None of us did,” Jeremiah said.
“So no one knows what brought about this familial alienation?” John asked. “Leigh, do you have some historical knowledge of this?”
Leigh shook her head, swallowing against a knot in her throat. Jeremiah’s words had worried her. Harry couldn’t die. He just couldn’t.
“No, I have no idea. I’m not sure my mother knew either.”
“And Harry is far too ill to ask,” Jeremiah said. “We shall just have to apply ourselves to his daughter and beg for understanding.”
“It’s too bad that Leigh can’t intercede as a family member, isn’t it? But I don’t see any way she can tell them she’s their however-many-times great-granddaughter,” Katherine said.
“No, I do not think that would be at all practical, but as I told Leigh, she may be the one to influence her great-grandmother. Harry was drawn to her, and it is possible Mrs. Nancy Reid will be drawn to her as well.”
“No pressure,” Leigh murmured. “I’m not what you would call charismatic, so let’s hope for the best.”
“Oh, I think you’re very charismatic, Leigh!” Katherine exclaimed. “There’s something very compelling about you.”
Leigh’s cheeks flamed.
“I would agree, Katherine,” Jeremiah said quietly.
Leigh fixed her gaze on Katherine, mostly to avoid looking at Jeremiah. Katherine’s lips curved into a grin, and she lifted an eyebrow.
“Thank you all,” Leigh mumbled. “I hope I have the gift of gab, but I think Jeremiah will do a better job. I look forward to meeting them though.” She kept talking nervously. “Jeremiah says we’ll ask about them at the post office and that the post office will probably tell us where they live. Isn’t that interesting?”
“That is a good plan,” John said.
“But not exactly what we’re used to, right, Leigh?” Katherine said with a chuckle.
“Right,” Leigh said. She sipped some of her lemonade and wished for a moment that it was iced so her cheeks would cool down. She wondered again how Tanya, the nurse, could have left Jeremiah. The man certainly knew how to deliver an understated compliment. If anyone had charisma, it was Jeremiah.
The children’s laughter caught their ears, and they all turned to watch the children in unison. As she watched them, Leigh wondered about the mechanics of childbirth in the early twentieth century or childhood survival in an era without antibiotics. She wasn’t sure those were questions she could ask Katherine, but she didn’t think she wanted to ask Jeremiah either.
They finished their lemonade, and Jeremiah rose.
“I should relieve Mrs. Jackson so that she can start dinner. Thank you so much, Katherine.”
“My pleasure,” she said, rising to hug Leigh. “See you tomorrow! What time?”
“I hope to leave at nine o’clock,” Jeremiah said. “Would that be convenient?”
“That’s fine,” Katherine said. “See you then.”
“It was nice to meet you, John,” Leigh said with a nod.
“We shall see much more of you while you are here,” he said congenially.
“I hope so,” she said.
Katherine called the children in from the garden, and Jeremiah and Leigh left. The sun was low in the sky, and Leigh wondered what time it was. She missed her cell phone, her companion over the past year. She had kept her books on it, checked the time and weather on it, used it for GPS.
“What time is it?” she asked as they walked back. She felt a bit shy in Jeremiah’s presence at the moment.
He pulled his pocket watch out of his vest. “About five o’clock. Mrs. Jackson will be anxious to begin dinner. I will have her warm up some more soup for Harry.”
“I’ll go straight up and relieve her,” Leigh said.
“I truly appreciate all that you are doing, Leigh,” Jeremiah said.
“Well, you’re giving me room and board, and he is my great-grandfather after all.”
“Yes, he is,” Jeremiah agreed. “I am worried that his possible death will add to what I believe to be overwhelming grief in your life.”
Chapter Twelve
Several hours later, Jeremiah opened the door to Harry’s room with the intention of relieving Leigh for the night. He stepped in quietly and noted Leigh asleep in the chair, her head slumped to her shoulder. Before waking her, he checked on Harry, who slept.
His lungs continued to be full of fluid, and Jeremiah bit his lower lip. He lifted Harry’s torso and put another pillow behind his back to ease his breathing.
On the nightstand were the remnants of Leigh’s dinner, half of a bowl of stew, and another bowl containing Harry’s broth, also half-full. Neither of them seemed to have much of an appetite, but Jeremiah was satisfied that Harry was at least
getting some nutrition.
He sat down on the edge of the bed and studied Leigh while she slept. The bedside lamp lent a soft golden glow to her reddish-brown curls and a peach tone to her cheeks. The overall effect was very flattering. He remembered that if she were to open her eyes, he would see blue irises flecked with white, a bit like crystals.
Her lips curved softly as she slept. Though she had smiled on occasion since she had arrived—as would be expected under the circumstances—her smile was authentic and sincere.
Small hands rested in her lap. He noted that she did not wear a ring, nor was there a mark upon her left hand showing that she might have worn one recently.
Against his better instincts, Jeremiah studied Leigh’s figure. Petite but curvaceous in all the right places, she was a lovely creature, and he fought the urge to touch her hand, her cheek, her curls. It was quite improper of him to watch her while she slept, and he turned away to look at Harry.
“How is he?” Leigh asked, startling Jeremiah. Had she seen him watching her? He swallowed hard, his cheeks flaming.
“About the same,” he said. “How are you? I have come to relieve you so that you may rest.”
“I’m fine.” She yawned and straightened in the chair. “I can watch over him tonight. As you can see, I was doing just fine snoozing in the chair.”
“You cannot be comfortable. Do please go get some rest in a comfortable bed.”
“What about you? You have to drive to Orting in the morning.”
“I am not unused to being called upon in the night to attend to emergencies. Like you, I shall probably doze in the chair.”
Leigh smiled in an unaffected way, and Jeremiah’s heart rolled over in his chest. Of course as a physician, he also knew that the muscle did no such thing, but the sensation was the same—an impression suggesting that the heart flopped and melted. Such romanticisms were not in his nature, but somehow the fanciful terms sprung to his mind.
“It’s very comfortable,” she said. She looked at her great-grandfather. “He ate some of his broth and asked me again to go find his daughter and granddaughter. I promised that we would.”
Jeremiah dragged his eyes from Leigh’s face with effort, and he turned to look down on Harry. “Poor old fellow,” he murmured. “I suppose if I am not careful, I shall end up the same way.”