Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1)

by Sara Mitchell

  “Now, Dr. MacAllister, don’t you start in with that business. You tell me your story, young man. That will ease pain better than those unpleasant nostrums you tried to foist off on me.”

  Sloan sat back with a sheepish smile and obeyed. “I met a young woman. Or rather . . . God more or less kept thrusting her in front of my face until I gave in and fell in love with her. After that, all the bitterness started to fade. I couldn’t nurture the love with my past still festering inside like a putrid wound.”

  He fingered the corners of his mustache, scratched his stubbled jaw—stalling. Then, with a kind of wondrous relief, he committed himself aloud for the first time. “When I go back to Virginia, I’m going to ask her to be my wife.”

  “Ah, to find the mate the blessed Lord has designed for you, there’s a gift indeed.” Her gaze, old, infinitely wise, wandered over him like loving hands. “She must be very special, this girl. I trust her walk with the Lord is as sure and strong as your own.”

  “Mm. As to that . . . I’m thinking that’s one of the plans He’s incorporated as part of my . . . let’s call it my restoration. Garnet’s faith, you see, is a convoluted mixture of reverence, service, and doubt. She doesn’t seem to grasp that God loves her, just as she is.”

  The need to hold her, to pour out his heart until all the gray in her misty eyes was swallowed up by the green, twisted his heart until every beat hurt. “I want to teach her. I want her to trust me. She’s not said the words, but I think she’s in love with me. She can’t hide it—there’s no guile in her, none of the barriers society trains in women from infancy. I took advantage of that, to my shame. And I took advantage of her father’s trust. That’s why I left her. Before I could return, explain my behavior—there was a letter. From my mother. And I knew I had to come back here first. Until I faced the cause for the—the blackness in my soul, I had no right to help Garnet with her struggles.”

  “Hmph.”

  She sat there, a dried-up wreck of a woman riddled with painful rheumatoid arthritis. Yet armed with a powerful dignity and that single piercing look, Berta Schumacher shredded the last of Sloan’s well-intentioned arrogance. “Dr. MacAllister, as a physician you’re a noble servant of our Lord, a model of the Great Physician if ever I saw one. As a gentlemen courting a young lady, I can tell you’ve made a mess of things.”

  “Yes ma’am.” He barely resisted the urge to squirm like a scolded schoolboy. “As soon as I pay a visit to Mrs. Jorvik, I’ll do my best to rectify those shortcomings.”

  “Don’t you be sassing me. I may be crippled and half-blind, but this old schoolteacher can still rap your knuckles.” Her eyes twinkled. “However, I will permit you to hold my hand again while I pray for you. You’re the only person whose touch doesn’t pain me dreadfully. I miss that bond, you know . . . since Emil’s passing and your departure, I’ve had only the Lord’s hand to hold.”

  “Mrs. Schumacher—”

  “My Jesus offers that comfort to be sure. But—long as He sees fit to confine me to this human form—there are moments when even His blessed spiritual Presence does little to quench the longing for the corporeal touch of a fellow believer.”

  “I’d be honored to hold your hand and pray with you,” Sloan whispered. He had to clear his throat. Very carefully he folded his strong warm fingers around Mrs. Schumacher’s fragile cold ones again.

  “Almighty Father, strong to save. Shepherd to the weak and the wayward . . . I thank You for Your unwavering pursuit of this troubled young man. For restoring the joy of his salvation. For Your unrelenting Spirit, who banished his bitterness, his wrath, and his anger. Who is helping him to learn to forgive others for their flawed humanity. And now, blessed Savior, continue to help Sloan to forgive himself, not only that he may live to serve You, but that he may be the man You designed him to be. Bless this young lady, Garnet, of Virginia. May hers and your son Sloan’s hearts and souls be united by You, through You—and for You, that the light of their union shall serve as a beacon for all. That all may see how great and wonderful and unfailing is Your love for Your children. Thine is the glory, both now and forevermore. Amen, and amen.”

  Silence filled the small dark room. God’s Presence had never been more real. Sloan opened his eyes almost reluctantly, blinking in the yellowish glow of the smoky kerosene parlor lamp on the table by Mrs. Schumacher’s chair. His throat tightened. He blinked again. Was it his imagination, or was the glow spreading throughout the room, except now it was infused with a white radiance bathing the two of them in unearthly peace?

  “You’re a good man, Sloan MacAllister,” Mrs. Schumacher said. The gnarled fingers tightened in his, a light fleeting pressure. “Now. Go visit Kristen Jorvik. Purge your soul. Then return to the Shenandoah Valley.” A beatific smile lit her face. “Told you those old hills would heal you, now didn’t I?”

  Twenty-Five

  Sinclair Run

  At precisely three o’clock in the afternoon, Joshua’s buggy pulled up in front of the house.

  “I wonder,” Garnet mused to her friend Chloe Spindle, “if he borrowed a manual on manners so he could memorize every one of the ‘rules on the etiquette of paying calls.’ ”

  “Will you put the poor man out of his misery today?”

  Chloe rose from her chair to stand over the couch where Garnet relaxed lengthways, legs stretched across the seat, Phineas asleep in her lap. The couch faced the parlor window, and both women watched through the lace panels as Joshua climbed down, carefully secured Ruth to the hitching post, brushed road dust from his waistcoat, and finally straightened the brown derby hat he’d worn to match his brown-checked suit.

  “You have to stay for a while longer now,” she told Chloe, who had arranged to spend the day with Garnet while Jacob was in Strasburg. For the last quarter of an hour, however, her friend had been making going-home noises. “I need a chaperone.”

  “What’s wrong with Phineas?” Chloe tugged a lock of Garnet’s hair. Then, laughing, she languidly stretched her arms. “Don’t fret, I’ll function as a crotchety maiden auntie for you. Stay there. I’ll answer the door.”

  Garnet watched her friend amble toward the hall. A frown gathered, and regretfully she woke Phineas. “Sorry, pet. You know how Joshua feels when you’re curled up in my lap.” Actually, it resembled, well . . . pouting. Of course, he was equally outraged by errant strands of fox hair clinging to Garnet’s clothing.

  She scratched the furry tufts behind one black-tipped ear. Phineas yawned, then licked the fingers Garnet had unknowingly balled into a fist in her lap. “It probably won’t matter much longer,” she murmured, setting the fox on the floor. Unblinking, Phineas watched her. “I know, you can tell something’s not quite right with me, can’t you?”

  From the entrance hall she heard the sound of Joshua’s slow drawl, his courtly inquiries after Chloe’s family, whom he hadn’t seen since they’d moved to Luray. Abruptly their voices dropped to heated whispers. Garnet sighed. Joshua had come expecting her father’s presence to observe propriety. And Chloe, loyal friend that she was, was taking her promise to Garnet seriously. Perhaps she should have sent Chloe out the kitchen door after all.

  Phineas growled, sounding so much like a protective watchdog Garnet had to smile. She swung her legs to the floor and brushed all the betraying orange-red strands away from her blue gown. “It’s a shame our hairs don’t match. Here.” She plucked a large slice of pear from the tray of refreshments. “Run along to the kitchen. Don’t worry. I can handle Mr. Jones.”

  Phineas accepted the offering daintily, the sharp white teeth barely closing over the juicy morsel. Garnet administered a discreet shove to his narrow flank. “Go along now. Scat. We’ll go for a ride later, I promise.”

  “Garnet.”

  She straightened, surreptitiously wiping her hands behind her back. “How are you this bleak afternoon, Joshua?”

  “Quite well. Thank you.” His gaze skittered from the fox—disappearing through the doorway to the dining r
oom—to Garnet’s stockinged feet peeking from beneath her petticoats. He cleared his throat. “Garnet . . . will you walk with me? Miss Spindle has agreed that propriety will be well served so long as she remains on the porch, and we remain in sight of it.” The high cheekbones turned a dusky red. “I hope you realize I would never do anything to compromise your Christian character.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t, Joshua. I—”

  “Nor do I want to shirk my responsibilities as a-a friend.” His hands turned the derby round and round. “We need to talk. If your father were here, which I gather he is not”—the tone conveyed Joshua’s disapproval—“I’m sure he would agree.”

  “I, on the other hand,” Chloe piped in, “have been a trifle more . . . unbending.”

  She and Joshua exchanged keen looks that reminded Garnet of the flash of drawn swords. Hmm. Joshua and Chloe? “I’ll walk with Mr. Jones.” She smiled at her friend’s consternation. “Don’t worry, Chloe. As Joshua has said, he’s a perfect gentleman.”

  “I’ll be right out front, on the porch, should he decide to change his mind.”

  “Miss Spindle has adopted some unseemly traits since her move.” Joshua paused. “She’s always been a godly young woman. I would hate to see that virtue tarnished.”

  “She cares about me,” Garnet refuted quietly. “And she’s been a true friend.”

  “Yes, well, I hope you hold me in equally high regard.” His stride was slow but decisive as they made their way across the yard. He wouldn’t look at her. “Garnet, you know how deeply I care about you.”

  “I know you do.”

  Garnet kept her own gaze on the scarlet-tipped leaves of a maple sapling that had sprung up in the middle of the cedars a decade earlier. Though surrounded by the brushy evergreens, the slender maple had somehow endured until now it cast its shadow over the cedars. “If you’ve stopped by to try again to change my mind about accompanying Mrs. Ward—”

  “Of course I’m going to try!” He stopped walking. “Garnet, did you read those verses I suggested? Wisdom dwells with prudence—‘the fear of the LORD is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy . . . the froward mouth . . .’? Mrs. Ward might be a fine figure of a woman, and I’m all too aware that she enjoys a national reputation of sorts, but she’s a brazen . . . professional woman. An artist. And she’s convinced you that because you draw pretty flowers for a ladies’ magazine—”

  “American Monthly is not a ladies’ magazine, Joshua. It’s—”

  “Whatever. The point is, Mrs. Ward has flattered you into thinking that you’re her equal. She’s manipulating you. Don’t you see? Lucifer cloaking himself as an angel of light to lead the unwary astray?”

  Incredulous, Garnet searched his face. All right, yes, she was aware of Felicity’s manipulative streak, and she had also come to realize that, token appearances for Sunday morning worship aside, Felicity wasn’t even a believer. But she wasn’t evil. And she needed compassion more than censure. As for Joshua . . . “It would appear that Felicity Ward is not the only one trying to influence my thoughts and actions.”

  “I see that she’s already blinded you,” he shot back. “See how quickly you act indignant on her behalf, instead of respecting the carefully thought out and, indeed, the more objective, observation by the man who’s been courting you these past several years.” He reached toward her, a fleeting brush of his gloved fingers just above her elbow.

  Garnet jerked back.

  “I beg your pardon.” Joshua took a step backward and crammed his hands in his pockets. His flushed cheeks darkened, and the genuine hurt Garnet saw in the cloudy blue eyes caused a splinter of remorse to lodge just beneath her breastbone.

  She pressed her hand to the spot. “I’m sorry, too. You—it’s just that I’m not used to a man’s touch—” No, that wasn’t honest. She gnawed her lower lip for a moment, then gave a mental shrug. “I’m not used to your touch,” she amended.

  “At one time I had hopes of remedying that,” Joshua said, his voice stiff. “That’s one of the issues we need to address. This—this incident which occurred when you were sixteen . . . was something of a shock to me, Garnet.”

  “Not as much as it was to me, I imagine,” Garnet retorted beneath her breath. She strolled over to one of the many ancient lichen-covered boulders dotted throughout their land and sat down.

  “Here.” Joshua removed his waistcoat. “You’ll soil your garment.”

  “Better that than your new suit. It is new, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, but stood above her with an obdurate aura, holding the coat out. Dear, stuffy Joshua. “Thank you,” she said after allowing him to spread it across the rough surface.

  “You’re welcome. Garnet, I have prayed for weeks about this. You must understand, I’m not trying to judge you. But I am convinced that God has been trying to reach you ever since that—that incident. Trying to teach you. ‘For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth,’ remember?”

  “You think He allowed those men to—to . . . You think that God arranged what happened, to teach me a lesson?”

  “Of course not,” he responded so quickly Garnet wondered if he was deceiving them both. “But I do think that, so long as your behavior lacks modesty and discretion, you compromise your faith. We’re not to test the Almighty, remember. When you do, I think He more often than not chooses discipline to curb disobedience.”

  The boulder’s dank chill seeped through Garnet’s clothing. Shivering, she contemplated this dismal explanation for her ongoing spiritual struggle. “You sound as though you’re telling me that God will only love me if I embrace proper behavior. That’s not the God my father brought me up to worship.”

  “Yes, well . . . your father has always tended to err on the lenient side with all of you, to my way of thinking.”

  “My father is not the subject of this conversation. Joshua, why did you come today? We’ve known each other too long to tiptoe around unpleasant topics. You disapprove of my behavior. Lately, I’ve begun to think you disapprove of me.”

  “There’s no need to be defensive, Garnet.”

  “Oh? Perhaps I wouldn’t be, if your remarks were less . . . offensive.”

  “You misunderstand.” Abruptly he dropped down beside her, searching her face in a kind of desperation. “Don’t go with Mrs. Ward, Garnet. Not until we—resolve matters between us. Please.”

  “Joshua—”

  “I prayed all night,” he continued rapidly, his voice low, almost hoarse. “I asked God to reveal His will to me. It had long been on my mind to . . . ah . . . to talk with your father. To request . . . that is, I had hoped that our affections were mutual . . .”

  Garnet laid a hand on his arm, halting the stumbling flow. He gawked at it until, flushing scarlet, Garnet snatched her hand away. “I like you, Joshua,” she said. “But it isn’t going to work out between us. I’ve known that for years. I believe what you came for today was to tell me that—finally—you agree with me.”

  He shrugged, his fingers rubbing over the chain of his watch fob, his gaze avoiding hers. “I prayed,” he repeated after a while. “All these years, I’ve been praying for the Lord to change your heart. Your . . . ways.”

  Garnet rose, shook out Joshua’s coat and handed it to him. “Did you ever ask the Lord to change yours?” Her throat ached, and her pulse reverberated through her eardrums at the finality of the circumstances. And yet a nascent feeling of peace drifted down, enveloping her in a gauze-thin cloak. “Good-bye, Joshua.”

  “Garnet . . .”

  Garnet managed a wry smile. “I think I’ll go on up the hill. I’d like to visit my mother’s grave. Would you mind very much explaining to Miss Spindle for me? Don’t worry. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at her amenable disposition.”

  She turned without another word and headed up the rocky slope.

  Adlerville

  “You’re a fine physician, Dr. MacAllister.” Mrs. Jorvik’s hands were busy as she talked, sewing infinitesimal stitches in the to
rn hem of a child’s smock. “I was right sorry, I was, when I heard you weren’t returning. But Amos’s death—”

  “Was my fault, I know. If I had stayed with him . . .”

  Her hands stilled, and the worn plump face creased in a bittersweet smile. “ ’Tis little use fretting over what might have been. He was bad off, was my husband, by the time he let me send for you in the first place.” Eyes reddened from too many hours of work with too little light surveyed Sloan with placid acceptance. “To my way of thinking, he would have died that night, no matter whether you labored at his bedside or no.”

  “Mrs. Jorvik”—even the days and weeks of steadfast prayer could not diminish the agonizing confession—“I must tell you this. You deserve to know. My brother—the telegram said only that he was gravely injured. I didn’t know”—the words emerged thick, sticking in his throat like wet sand—“I didn’t know then that he was already dead.”

  Mrs. Jorvik went still. For several moments the only sound in the tiny neat-as-a-butler’s-pantry room was the crackle of the fire and the contented patter of Gretchen, the Jorviks’ youngest child. Absorbed, the baby was playing with a tattered rag doll on the floor by her mother’s chair. Gretchen would be almost eighteen months now. And she would never know her father.

  The guilt sucked at his conscience, tugging Sloan from behind the wall of grace God had erected in his behalf. He wanted to bury his head in his hands and weep. Instead he kept his gaze on the poignant tableau of widowed mother and fatherless child, and prayed for the strength to endure.

  “That was a difficult admission for you to make,” Mrs. Jorvik finally said. She followed the direction of Sloan’s gaze and leaned over to pick Gretchen up. “Almost, I’m thinking, as difficult as it is for me to hear. Like me, you regret that Amos will not know his youngest daughter, that she will not know him.”

  “Yes. With every breath I draw. God has forgiven me, Mrs. Jorvik. I believe I’ve come to accept that much, at least. I’m struggling to forgive myself.” He inhaled, held his breath until he could finish what he had to say, then slowly let it out. “What I need to know is . . . will you forgive me?”