A Bride Idea

by Yvonne Lehman

  His gaze fell on Juliet, with her face lifted, staring at the tree as if she’d never seen anything so beautiful.

  He hadn’t. Not with the way the candles seemed to make a halo around her hair, her face, and her eyes. Why, why, he asked himself, when a man has so much, must he always long for. . .more?

  ❧

  A week before Christmas, they went to the church for the children’s program. When Neil saw the cows on the stage when the curtain opened, he figured it would be entertaining but not too spiritual.

  However, after the scene of no room at the inn and the young couple in the stable, the cows were led off the stage and outside.

  The children’s program was a huge success. Stella, Juliet, and the women and men they’d engaged to help had done a professional job of it. They’d even added a curtain that could be drawn across the stage. It had become a theater, and the children were in costumes befitting real shepherds and kings.

  There was no forgetting of lines or giggling over children making mistakes. The program turned out to be meaningful, with the focus on the birth of Christ. The children took it very seriously and so did everyone in the audience.

  Every child had a part, from the youngest real baby in the manger to the oldest. The oldest said the words “This is the Savior of the world. This is Christ the Lord.” The wonder of it came through.

  Neil knew that Stella—this woman he suspected didn’t know much about the Bible—was primarily responsible. Maybe it was her own wonder that caused it to come through in this performance. It was the old story presented in a fresh and awe-inspiring way.

  The young actors questioned, “This baby is a king? Why is He born in a stable?” The participants asked more questions than they answered, causing the onlookers to think. “Why would God want us to bring these expensive gifts to this baby? Has anyone ever seen a star so bright? Why would an angel appear to us when we are just lowly shepherds?”

  The musical ability of Stella and Juliet had to be what caused the children to sound like angels. Juliet played the piano, and Stella led them in her exuberant or quiet way, depending on the song.

  At the end, Stella had everyone sing a hymn while leaving the church. The service had been solemn and worshipful. He reprimanded himself for having expected something rather outrageous to happen. All was quiet and peaceful.

  All of a sudden, a loud crack disturbed his thoughts.

  He and the pastor exchanged glances. They rushed to the door. Stella’s wagon had been pulled up near the door. Bart and Carter stood in it, handing down paper bags.

  Each one dipped into a bag, pulled out a Christmas cracker, and filled the night with pops, cracks, and laughter.

  Neil took a bag and handed it to Juliet, then took his own. In it was an apple, an orange, nuts, a candy cane, pieces of hard candy, and a Christmas cracker. He and Juliet pulled the ends, popped theirs, and laughed. Their frosty breaths mingled in the cold December air and warmed his heart.

  He spied his grandmother leaning against Stella for balance while she popped her cracker. She had refused to wear anything on her head, except the short haircut Stella had given her. It did look quite nice, but he feared she’d catch her death of cold. Soon she left with Stella in the wagon.

  Neil and Juliet rode in the carriage. He tried to think of a way to express his gratitude. That weekly salary and ending their relationship in a year was becoming an albatross around his neck.

  The stars were shining in the clear sky. The frosty air was invigorating, but not nearly so much as having this beautiful, talented, caring woman by his side. He’d warned himself not to say anything too personal. Maybe he could lead up to letting her know that her presence in his home—in his life—was far beyond any job offer he could imagine. Could she possibly be thinking along the same lines?

  Finding his voice, he said, “I’ve never known the children’s program to be so well done. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you. God gave us a beautiful story to work with.” A touch of weariness seemed to have affected her voice.

  “I suppose you’re tired. You’ve worked so hard for this night.”

  “Oh, maybe a little,” she said with a small smile. “But something is troubling me. Seeing the children and adults laughing and having so much fun on the church lawn tonight made me think of the children in the mining area. Just a paper bag with a few items in it would mean the world to them.”

  No, she hadn’t been thinking of him. She was thinking of her unhappy childhood in the mining area. And after the wonderful reminder this night of what God had given the world, he should have been thinking of others, too.

  “Should this be a church project?”

  She nodded, and her smile lit up the night brighter than the soft moonlight that touched her face. He promptly turned the carriage around and drove to the pastor’s house.

  The Whitfields loved the idea, and by Tuesday morning the word had spread. The Bible study time turned into a time for goodies and toys being brought to the inn and bagged.

  Neil came home for lunch to assist them, and in the even-ings he helped some more. “I don’t want to use only my money to buy toys and fruit,” he said to Juliet. “I want to use my hands and heart in this project.”

  She nodded. “The pastor says it’s more blessed to give than receive.”

  He smiled. All around him were happy faces. On Saturday he felt joyful when he and Juliet led the way up the mountain with a couple of wagons following.

  Later, standing back and watching the miners’ children excited about their gifts, parents looking on with happiness, and all laughing as they popped their Christmas crackers, he felt like he’d had an insight that had been missing.

  He found fulfillment in being a doctor. Having watched his parents taken from him by the flu epidemic had enhanced his desire to help the sick. But that was also his profession. This—reaching out to the less fortunate—was not only a command of God, it was a heartwarming experience.

  This wife of his was teaching him some important lessons. He couldn’t remember a more meaningful Christmas.

  ❧

  After the worship service on Christmas Day, Neil started a fire in the parlor and lit the candles on the Christmas tree. He, Juliet, his grandmother, and Stella were to exchange gifts. He couldn’t imagine getting anything to bring him any more joy than he already had.

  He was especially pleased to see his grandmother enjoying herself and looking so well. Even in the times she was not well enough to get out of bed, she always had someone, probably Hedda or Bart, get a gift for him. But while the gifts were always nice, he mostly just missed having her to celebrate with. He marveled that this year she was in the parlor acting as excited as a child, tearing paper from her gifts and exclaiming her delight and thanks.

  They all were opening presents at one time like eager children. Stella gave Mama McCory and Juliet headbands. Both promptly put them on. Neil slung a wool scarf around his neck and tried on a pair of gloves. Juliet draped a beautiful white-fringed shawl over his grandmother’s shoulders.

  He opened up the phonograph recordings Juliet got him, pleased that she must have remembered he’d commented how nice it was to have music in the house again.

  She listened to the soft tinkling sound of the musical jewelry box he gave her. She liked it, but he didn’t know how she would receive his other gift. Before she opened it, she exclaimed, “Oh, I only got you one gift.”

  “No,” he said. “There are four recordings here.”

  She gave him that look. “It’s only one gift.”

  “All right.” He held out his hand. “Give it here.”

  She made a face and hugged it close. Then she began to tear off the paper and lifted the box lid. Her mouth opened in surprise. “Oh, you remembered.”

  Yes, he remembered the day she admired the black, jeweled purse in a shop window and wouldn’t let him buy it for her.

  While Stella and his grandmother admired it, Juliet looked at him with grat
itude and said softly, “Thank you.”

  The gift that brought tears to her eyes, however, was the locket his grandmother gave her. “This is an heirloom,” she said. “My and Streun’s pictures were in here. Now it should have your and Neil’s pictures.”

  Neil knew Juliet was touched by the gift. But he didn’t know if the tears on her cheeks were because of the generosity of his grandmother or because she felt she had no right to accept it.

  He wanted his expression to tell Juliet she had every right. But Juliet did not look directly at him again for a long, long time.

  They all looked, however, when his grandmother handed him a legal document. “I don’t want you to have to wait until I’m gone before you get this, Neil.” It was the deed to the acres on the mountain where he’d often talked about building a house someday. The land he’d shown to Juliet in October—where he would like to someday settle down with his own family.

  But it was not the gifts that touched his heart. In trying to make his grandmother’s life more meaningful in her last months, he’d inadvertently done that for himself.

  He would keep the memory of the togetherness, the caring, the reaching out to others—this Christmas—in his heart. . . forever.

  seventeen

  A big ice storm came at the end of January. That’s when Carter came, almost frozen, saying a train had derailed going up a steep mountain curve from Canaan Valley to Sunrise. The injured were being taken to Sunrise Hospital. “It’s bad,” Carter said, shaking his head. “They need all the help they can get.”

  Olivia knew Neil hated to leave. Mama McCory had a bad cold she had been unable to shake. Even as he shrugged into his heavy coat, he gave instructions. “Make sure she gets her rest and takes her medication. When she’s sick she won’t always eat, but she needs to. And she needs plenty of water.”

  “We’ll take good care of her,” Stella promised.

  He looked contrite. “I know you will. And”—he looked from one to the other—“take care of yourselves, too.”

  Without thinking, Olivia reached out and touched his sleeve. “You, too,” she said softly. His gaze held hers for a long moment. He nodded, then pulled the hood up over his head and the gloves on his hands.

  The ice and wind he went into were so cold that Olivia shuddered from having the door open only long enough for the doctors to leave. She turned, hugging her arms, and hurried to the parlor and stood in front of the fire. “Well,” she said to Stella, “I guess it’s just you and me.”

  “If anything happens to Mama. . .”

  Olivia closed her eyes. “Don’t even say it. I could never, never get over such a thing.” She exhaled a deep breath. “Neil would never forgive us.”

  Stella put her arms around Olivia’s shoulders. “You and I will become the best nurses ever.” She brightened. “I played the part of a nurse one time.”

  Olivia hoped that would be good enough. “Let’s go see our patient.”

  Keeping their patient in bed wasn’t easy. By noon, Mama McCory was dressed and insisted on being up and around for lunch. “I was helpless for a long time,” she said. “I don’t mind resting, but I don’t want to spend my life in bed if I don’t have to.”

  “Fine,” Stella said. “You stay in your room and read until lunch is ready.”

  Mama McCory agreed, with a look of triumph in her eyes.

  “We can be as stubborn as she is,” Stella growled. “She’s not going to run around in this drafty house and blame us for getting worse.”

  They took the steaming chicken soup, slices of buttered bread made fresh that morning, and hot tea to the round table in front of her window. Olivia put another log in her fireplace. The three of them ate while looking out the window at the snow-covered ground. They agreed it looked beautiful but were concerned about the train wreck and wondered whether Neil was outside helping the injured or inside the hospital.

  “I wish there was some way we could help,” Olivia said, stacking their dishes after they’d eaten.

  Suddenly, the sound of a horse’s snort and whinny drew their attention to the window. Horses were struggling, pulling two creaking and groaning wagonloads of people up the long drive.

  “Looks like your wish is about to come true,” Mama McCory said. “This kind of thing happened several years ago, but there’s no time to get into that now. We’d better get these people in before they freeze to death.”

  “You stay in this room,” Stella demanded.

  “Would you?” She answered her own question. “You’d be up and helping if you could. I know enough to take care of myself.”

  Olivia laid the coats in a pile as the six men, three women, and four children shucked them off and warmed themselves by the parlor fire. They told fearful tales of having to climb out of the leaning train car. Others had not been so fortunate.

  “We were told the hotel and boardinghouse were full,” one middle-aged man said. “We’re grateful we can come here.”

  After they were warmed, Mama McCory sent men to get cots from the basement. “Others may come.”

  Before the day was out, there were eighteen. Some had injured loved ones in the hospital. Cots were set up in the dining room for the men. Women and children had the second floor.

  Olivia felt she learned more about running an inn that day than in the months before. Although the travelers pitched in, she knew that making sure rooms were clean, making breakfast, and insuring they had a good food supply would be simple after having this crowd to care for.

  Mama McCory said they wouldn’t charge them for staying. “They aren’t paying guests but stranded travelers. But if they offer something for the food, we can accept it.”

  That sparked an idea in Stella. She was already delighting everyone by adding different ingredients to the muffins, cakes, and candy she made. They played a game of guessing the ingredients.

  After the first day, she wrapped her sweets in waxed paper, set them on a table in the dining room, and sold them. The guests called them “Stella’s Sweets.”

  Men kept the fires going and even set up an unused book-shelf in the dining room for Stella’s Sweets. They shoveled snow from the driveway all the way to the main road, then came in for the hot cocoa Olivia made.

  Mama McCory warned that the electricity often went off in the wintertime. Some of the travelers responded they didn’t even have electricity in their homes yet, so that wouldn’t bother them. It stayed on, however. The travelers were able to make telephone calls, and by the end of the week, word came that trains could leave Sunrise again.

  Some of the women were afraid. “It’s the safest way this time of year,” a man said. “That’s why we have more railroad tracks than roads in these parts. Accidents happen. The good Lord took care of us and gave us a warm place to stay.”

  One of the women expressed what had gone through Olivia’s mind. “Why do things like this have to happen?”

  The man shrugged, looking troubled. “The engineer might have been going too fast, a rail could have been loose, something could have been on the tracks. . .”

  “And, too,” Mama McCory said, “if things like that never happened, you would never know how to appreciate it when they didn’t.”

  The man smiled. “Now there’s wisdom.”

  They all seemed to accept that, and by the end of the week they had all gone except one woman who stayed a couple of days longer until she learned her husband was well enough to travel.

  The first evening after all the “guests” were gone, the inn seemed strangely quiet. Olivia and Stella were cleaning up from supper, and Mama McCory sat at the table with a cup of coffee. Olivia heard male voices coming from the foyer. She hadn’t heard the knocker on the door or the bell on the desk.

  She walked into the foyer to find a man with a coat draped around his shoulders. His left arm was in a splint and a sling. He held a travel bag with his right hand. A bearded man, who accompanied the man with the splint, was leaning over the desk, looking at the open ledg
er that was turned toward him.

  “Sir?” she said forcefully at such impoliteness. “Can I help you?”

  The bearded man straightened and faced her. His eyes looked tired, but they held a trace of mischief. “Yes, ma’am.”

  That’s when she realized he was wearing Neil’s coat. And he had Neil’s voice.

  “Oh, Neil.” She rushed over to him and grabbed the sleeves of his coat. “I’m so glad you’re all right.” She looked up into his face. The mischief was gone from his eyes. He just looked tired. But his hand had come up and lay against her waist.

  “It’s good to be home,” he said. “But I need a bath, a shave, and something to eat. We have a guest.” He stepped back and introduced her to the man with him. “This is my wife, Juliet McCory.”

  That’s when Olivia realized she had rushed to Neil as if having every right to be enveloped in an embrace from her husband who had been away. She had to ask him to repeat the man’s name, then turned to the ledger and wrote, “Danny Quinn.” “He may have the trillium room.”

  “I’ll take him up.”

  But that was her job, and Neil looked unkempt and weary. “You need to get cleaned up, remember?”

  “Don’t nag, woman.” He shucked off his coat and handed it to her.

  Oh, so he wanted to play the husband-wife teasing game. She’d try it. “You’re just like your grandmother. You never slow down.”

  “You’re one to talk,” he scoffed. “I heard about what went on here while I was gone.” A dimple formed in Danny Quinn’s cheek as he began to follow Neil up the stairs.

  Later Neil walked into the kitchen, looking and smelling clean. That weariness was still in his face, however, and he looked thinner than he had a week ago. He hugged his grandmother and Stella. “Good to be home.”

  He’d invited Danny to supper, saying they both had eaten hospital meals all week. Danny seemed polite and nice. He was very muscular and looked to be around forty.