by Jane Peart
His expression was one of infinite tenderness, pity. “He was only ill a few days. They didn’t think it was serious, or they would have sent for you—he went very quickly.”
Before he could say anything more, Johanna burst into tears. She gasped, “It’s my fault. I caused it. If I hadn’t disobeyed…If I hadn’t left home…”
“Oh Johanna, you mustn’t say that. Don’t. Don’t blame yourself.” His voice broke and he just held her tighter, unable to find anything to stop the pain she was inflicting upon herself. It was a pain she had not known nor understood nor even knew existed, one she did not think she could endure.
Throughout that long, cold night, Ross held her. Outside, the wind howled around the house, moaned through the tall pine trees, sighing like the keening sound of mourners. Johanna shivered and he drew her closer. She felt the deeply buried aching, the longing, rise within her. I want to go home. I must go home. She lay awake through most of the night, unable to stop thinking. When the gray light of dawn crept through the windows, she eased herself out of bed, crouched in front of the hearth, where the one remaining log left burning when they had gone to bed glowed red, making a whispering sound. She felt cold clear through. Her hands were icy, and she held them out to the fire to try to warm them. Johanna’s eyes burned watching it and filled up with tears again.
She heard movement behind her, and Ross was beside her, holding her in his arms, rocking her like a baby while she sobbed on his shoulder. After a while he carried her back to bed.
When she awoke, Ross’s place beside her was empty. She heard him moving around in the kitchen. A fire already blazed in the hearth, and she heard the clink of pottery, smelled the scent of boiling chicory. After a while he came to the foot of the bed. “I let you sleep. You needed the rest. But I’m taking you to your mother’s today. You must see your father buried.”
The rain had stopped and there was the smell of wood smoke in the air, which had a touch of frost. They rode down to his mother’s house to tell them they would be gone to Hillsboro for the funeral, to spend some time with Johanna’s grieving family.
While Ross explained, Johanna sat huddled on a bench and stared into the fire, her mind pain-paralyzed. She was unable to speak. Eliza’s voice was gentle as she said, “Of course you must go. Your ma needs you.”
Johanna did not answer. She started to say something, tell the truth. Her mother did not need her. Her mother had never needed her. The truth was, she needed her mother. Or at least everything her mother symbolized—comfort, safety, childhood.
She felt Ross’s tender gaze upon her, saw him exchange a glance with his mother, a bid for understanding. Johanna made an effort to speak very politely. She longed for sympathy but could not seem to respond to it. Eliza poured a mug of tea and placed it in Johanna’s numb hands. “Drink this afore you go. It’ll help,” she said softly.
During the long, jogging journey along the trail that zigzagged down the mountain, Johanna was racked by grief and burdened by guilt. Was her stubborn, rebellious behavior in some way the cause of her father’s death? Her mother had often mentioned in her letters,
Your father is often downcast and without his old cheerfulness. He misses you, Johanna, always having relied on your special companionship.
Could such a thing have brought on a depression leading to illness? It didn’t seem possible—her father had always been hearty and vigorous.
I deserve everything I’m feeling, Johanna thought bleakly. But even in her misery, she was reminded of Preacher Tomlin’s exhortation—“Condemnation is not from God. In Christ Jesus there is no condemnation.” She wanted to believe that. Why then did she feel so guilty? But could God forgive her if she couldn’t forgive herself?
At last they came into Hillsboro. It was raining here as well. The roads were wet. On walkways, sodden clumps of leaves were piled under the dripping branches of the bare trees. As they rode through the familiar streets, past the familiar houses, out the familiar road that led to Holly Grove, Johanna felt as if she had been gone forever, much longer than five months.
On their way down the mountain, several times Ross had drawn his horse up beside Johanna’s, asked anxiously if she wanted to stop, take a short rest. She had shaken her head. Her only thought was to get home.
At last they saw the road, fenced with split rails, that led up to Holly Grove. In the curving driveway were several buggies and one carriage drawn up in front of the house. At first that startled Johanna, until she realized that of course the aunties would all have gathered to do all the things caring relatives did in times of sorrow. She could just imagine them flocking there in proper mourning attire, like so many blackbirds.
Drenched in spite of her wool cape, and saddle weary, Johanna put her hands on Ross’s shoulders and let him lift her down.
“I’ll see to the horses later. I want to get you inside,” he told her. His arm supported her as they went up the steps of the porch. Before they reached the top, the front door flew open, and Elly flung herself into Johanna’s arms.
“Oh Johanna, you’ve come! I knew you would! I’ve been waiting and waiting. Oh Johanna, poor Papa—” And she burst into heartbroken sobs.
Johanna leaned over her, smoothing back the silken curls from the small, tear-streaked face, murmuring comfortingly, “Hush, sweetie. I know, I know.”
“Do come in. You’re chilling the whole house,” spoke another voice with a trace of irritation. Johanna looked up and over Elly’s head and saw her other sister standing there, holding the door open.
Cissy looked different, more grown-up even than a few months ago. She was dressed in black taffeta, her hair held back by a wide black velvet band. However, it was her expression that puzzled Johanna. She had a fleeting impression that her sister was not all happy to see her. Quickly Johanna dismissed that thought. She was probably wrong. Her cool attitude must be Cissy’s way of handling her grief, Johanna thought, and she went forward to embrace her.
“Where’s Mama?” Johanna asked. The words were no sooner spoken than Aunt Honey and Aunt Cady appeared from the parlor, followed by Aunt Hannah. Immediately Johanna was smothered with hugs and sympathy. Ross was taken in hand and led to the dining room, where, as Johanna knew it would be, food was spread out in abundance.
“I must go see Mama.” Johanna extricated herself from the lilac-scented embrace of Aunt Cady, who was handsome in an elegant mourning ensemble.
“Of course you must, my dear. I’ll bring up some tea for both of you,” Aunt Honey promised, and Johanna shed her hooded cloak and went swiftly up the stairway.
Johanna opened her parents’ bedroom door quietly. Her mother, dressed in a wide-skirted black dress, was sitting in the wing chair by the window, her chin resting on one graceful hand. At the sound of the door opening, she turned her head. In that brief moment, Johanna thought again how beautiful her mother was. Her dark hair rose from a distinct widow’s peak. When she saw who was standing there, Rebecca gave a little cry, “Oh, my dear!” and held out her arms, and Johanna went into them.
For a long moment, mother and daughter clung to each other. Rebecca was the first to let go. Drawing back, she regarded Johanna thoughtfully.
“He loved you so, Johanna…so very much.” In those few softly spoken words, Johanna sensed something else. A reprimand, an accusation, a judgment? Without actually saying so, her mother had deepened Johanna’s own feelings of guilt. It was almost as if she had said, “If you hadn’t gone away, this would not have happened.”
There was no time to think that through, because Rebecca gestured for her to sit on the tufted hassock beside her chair.
Rebecca was unusually pale yet composed and as exquisitely groomed as always, onyx pendant earrings set in silver filigree swung from her ears, and an onyx cameo was pinned at the throat.
“Oh Mama, I’m so—“Johanna’s voice broke. Her sense of loss and sadness was too deep for her to express. Her mother patted her hand. “I know, dear, I know.”
“How did it happe
n? Was he sick long? Was it a heart attack, what?”
Still holding her daughter’s hand, Rebecca began, “He came home one evening, chilled. There had been a cold drizzle all day that turned to a freezing rain. He was thoroughly soaked, not having taken an umbrella with him. He refused my suggestion to change and get to bed immediately to ward off any possible effect. He wouldn’t hear of it—just took off his boots and had dinner with us as usual. But the next morning—” Rebecca shook her head, her eyes moistened. “He awoke with a rasping cough, pains in his chest. I sent for Dr. Murrison, but he was out delivering a baby in the countryside and did not come calling until that evening—”
Johanna clasped her mother’s hand. “Oh Mama, how dreadful—did he suffer much?”
“You know your father, Johanna, how he always makes—made,” she corrected herself, “light of any physical problem he might have—” She paused. “I don’t think any of us realized how serious it was. He did agree to stay in bed that day, however. He asked me to bring his writing tray, some papers from his desk. Although I protested he should rest, he insisted. He worked for some time, then said he felt tired and would sleep for a while. But by the time Alec—Dr. Murrison—came by, he was already far gone—the congestion had gone into his lungs, and he had a high fever. Dr. Murrison thought he might be able to fight it.” Rebecca sighed. “But he never really rallied. Spoke only a few mostly incoherent words, then—slipped into unconsciousness.”
“Oh, Mama.” Johanna felt as if her heart were breaking.
Tears rolled unchecked down her face. She put her head on her mother’s lap, felt Rebecca’s hand laid lightly upon it.
After a few minutes, Rebecca said, “I must go downstairs now, Johanna. People will be calling. People have been kindness itself, and I must receive them. That’s what your father would want me to do.” With a rustle of taffeta, she rose to her feet, then said to Johanna, “You don’t have to come, not just yet, anyway. Tomorrow after the funeral, there will be those who will want to see you.” Rebecca moved over to her bureau, peered briefly into the mirror to check her appearance. She lifted one of the two boxes on top, took out an envelope, then turned and held it out to Johanna. “He wrote you a letter.”
Johanna got up and walked over to where her mother stood, and took it. Her mother was watching her with appraising eyes, the ones Johanna had always felt could see and judge beneath the outer shell of a person. Rebecca seemed to hesitate, as if to wait for Johanna to open it and read it while she was there. But Johanna simply stared down at the familiar handwriting, the classic swirls and loops of her father’s Spenserian script. Her finger traced the wax seal imprinted with the familiar crest of her father’s signet ring. Torn by wanting to read it and somehow dreading what her father might have written to her, Johanna hesitated. Rebecca waited only a few seconds before going out the door, saying over her shoulder, “We’ve put you and Ross in Elly’s room, Johanna. Cissy took yours when you left, and Elly can sleep with her while you’re here.”
Those words sent a chill through Johanna that her mother surely could not have guessed or intended. Although Johanna had relinquished her privileged place as the oldest daughter at home to Cissy before she left, the fact that Cissy had taken over the room she’d had since she was born made Johanna realize that things had truly changed in this regard.
That explained the enigmatic look on her sister’s face upon their arrival. It was the unspoken fear that by Johanna’s coming, she might be displaced. The old instinctive rivalry. Johanna smiled ruefully. It was she who felt displaced.
Leaving her mother’s room, she walked down the hall and opened the door to Elly’s room, went in, and closed the door. She went over to the window, then with hands that shook broke the seal on her father’s letter and drew out two folded pages and began to read.
My Dearest Daughter…
In the months that were to come, Johanna would read that letter again and again. Its pages became stained from the tears that fell as she read what her father had written. In these lines, Johanna discovered the parent’s heart she had never known. His love, his dreams for her, his hopes, his disappointment, his loneliness for her. In spite of what had happened to cause their estrangement, her willful insistence on making her own marriage choice, his love for her had never changed. Now that it was too late, she understood it was that very love that had seemed so strangely cruel to her. This letter, written when he was so ill, perhaps when he knew it was a mortal illness, was undertaken to release her from any remorse or guilt. It was his last will and testament to a beloved child.
On the day of Tennant Shelby’s funeral, the sky was overcast. In the church, Johanna sat in the family pew, beside Rebecca on one side, her sisters on the other. Behind them were all the aunties, their husbands. Johanna’s eyes, swollen from all her weeping, were hidden behind the veil that one of the aunties had hastily sewn onto her bonnet the night before because Johanna had been too shocked to come prepared with the mourning attire expected to be worn by members of the family. Tears blurred the print as Johanna tried to read the words of the service in her prayer book.
The church was filled. Tennant Shelby had been an outstanding man of the community, revered for his integrity. However, none had known him as Johanna remembered—a kind, gentle, loving father. Why had she not appreciated him more? She had taken his sheltering care, his indulgence, his concern, for granted. She had stubbornly resisted his counsel, his advice. Johanna thought of the times she had turned away as he had tried to embrace her during those awful months when he had opposed her marriage.
If only she could go back—do it over. Not that she would have loved or wanted Ross less, but she could have been less selfish, tried to see her parents’ side more.
Winter sunlight shone weakly through the arched window behind the altar but soon faded, leaving the interior of the church gray, full of shadows. Johanna shuddered. Elly, sitting beside her, glanced at her worriedly and slipped a small hand, wearing a black kid glove, into hers. Johanna gave it a reassuring squeeze. She must be strong and brave for Elly’s sake, for Cissy’s too. At least she had Ross, while her sisters were left without a wise father, a protector.
The service ended and Johanna, with the rest of the family, followed the pallbearers carrying the casket out of the church to the adjoining cemetery.
The aunties were all appropriately draped in crepe veiling, which flowed from their bonnets in the November wind. With their caped shoulders and black-gloved, folded hands, they looked like a flock of black-winged sparrows hovering around their cousin, the widow.
Johanna tried to concentrate on the minister’s words.
The minister began reading the final words over the casket before it was lowered into the newly dug grave. “In the midst of life, we are in death…”
Standing among the granite crosses, the engraved headstones, the flowers and wreaths, Johanna knew a sense of intolerable loss, of terrible aloneness. Frightened, she glanced around and still felt apart.
She looked over at Ross for reassurance. But his head was bowed. She felt separated from him too. I am a stranger here. Among my own people. Involuntarily she shivered. She must pay attention. She clenched her hands. She felt as if she might faint and stiffened her body, willing herself not to.
The minister’s words came again, intoning the words of commitment, consigning her father to his heavenly rest. “Most merciful Father, who has been pleased to take unto thyself the soul of this thy servant, grant unto us who are still in our pilgrimage and who walk as yet by faith…” Something in Johanna’s heart refused to be comforted.
Inside she was wrenched with a terrible need for her father. She didn’t want to let him go. Not yet. I don’t want you to go. I have so much I want to say to you, so much to explain…
It began to sprinkle, large drops falling slowly. Umbrellas opened up. The mourners huddled closer together, and the minister’s voice picked up speed.
“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts.
Shut not thy ears to our prayers but spare us, Lord by thy gracious mercy…” He hurried to the last part of the service. “The Lord be with thy spirit. And so we say together, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be…”
The assembled mourners joined in the Lord’s Prayer as the rain began to come harder, the wind stronger. Johanna’s throat thickened and she could not get past the hard, painful lump lodged there, to repeat the familiar words. “Forgive us our debts…”
Back at the house, the aunties bustled about, setting out the dishes, the cakes, pies, and other things they’d baked and brought for the funereal feast. Feast! What a name, Johanna thought bleakly. She sipped the tea Auntie Bee urged upon her, wrapping her icy hands around the cup, trying to warm them. She accepted condolences from family friends, nodding, murmuring thanks. All she could think of was her father out in the graveyard in the rain.
The afternoon lengthened painfully. Toward dusk, the last of the guests began to straggle to the door with last-minute expressions of sympathy, platitudes of solace, offering to provide whatever the grief-stricken family needed. Soon the aunties began gathering up their assorted dishes and containers, promising to replenish or refill them before they too departed.
Ross came to Johanna and led her into the small alcove off the dining room.
“I’m going over to Dr. Murrison’s tonight, Johanna. I’ve already spoken to him. As a matter of fact, he came over to me at the funeral, asked me to come. I’ll have to leave early in the morning to go back, anyway. As you know, I’ve got a lot of sick folks in Millscreek that need me. If I’m over there with him, my leaving won’t disturb your family.” His eyes showed concern. “You look exhausted, Johanna. You all need your rest. It’s been a long, sorrowful day. But I think you’ll be a real comfort to your mother if you stay here a few days. Whenever you feel you can leave her, just send me word and I’ll come for you.”
Johanna was a little taken aback by Ross’s decision. Truthfully, she had made no plans. She had not even thought as far as the next day. However, she could see that his was the wisest course. Perhaps he was right—maybe her mother did need her, more than she had thought.