by Merry Farmer
“Once we get back from testing out the boats, once we’ve been able to determine that everything will work smoothly and that the business will be able to get up and running, Andrew and I are going to host a party.”
“Really?”
“Yes. A party to christen the boats. And to give people a tour. Right now the plan is to take our friends and family out for a picnic on the sea.”
“That does sound fun.”
“Yes it does.” He turned his head to face her again. “I want you to help us plan it.”
Louisa cringed at the thought of working with Andrew to plan a party celebrating the exact thing that he had held over her head as his way to save her.
“Jamie, I—”
“You owe me,” he reminded her.
“I hardly think planning, well, that sort of a party and fixing a bicycle tire are on the same level.”
“But you love that bicycle.” He nudged her. “Think of how lost you would be without it.”
He had her backed into a corner and she knew she wouldn’t be able to get out. She sighed as they reached the edge of the carriage where Henry and her mother were waiting impatiently.
“All right,” she mumbled, dropping her shoulders. “I’ll do it. I’ll help. But that’s all.”
“Good.”
Jamie moved as if he would hand her off into the carriage, but stopped and turned back to her, letting the rain shield their words from anyone else for one more moment.
“Louisa, I want you to know something.” She raised her eyebrows. “There are some things in this life that are more precious than gold. If you count your wealth by natural measures alone, then you will always come up short. But if you count your worth by the gifts that the Lord gave you, well, then you walk among the angels. See yourself the way the Lord sees you.”
He winked and nodded for her to get into the carriage.
For a moment Louisa just stood there and looked at him, eyes wide and heart brimming. She wasn’t sure how she managed to climb up into the carriage and settle herself on the seat beside her mother, but by the time the carriage door shut, blocking out the rain and the wet, a whole new sparkle of hope rested around her.
“What did Andrew’s friend want?” Henry asked her with a curious grin over her far-away expression.
“He.…” She swallowed. “He wants me to help plan a party to christen his and Andrew’s boats.”
Both Henry and her mother made gentle sounds of approval. “He’s not in the Church, is he?” her mother asked.
Louisa started to shake her head no but stopped. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”
For the first time in what felt like ages, Louisa relaxed into a genuine smile.
Chapter 10
The rain didn’t let up. It poured through the night, and well into Monday morning. Louisa worked diligently on the embroidery her mother had brought home from Mrs. Hellickson’s shop, trying to sort through the tangle of hope and fear and longing her conversations with Andrew and Jamie had left her with. It didn’t cross her mind to complain about the damp or being separated from her friends, or to worry that her eyes would start hurting or her work wouldn’t be enough. She had far deeper things to think about.
What had Andrew been trying to tell her after church? What was he working on? She rolled through scenario after scenario in her mind.
But it was Jamie’s words—his story—that stuck with her. He had only shared a tiny fragment of his life and struggles with her, and even that was enough to fill her with horror, if she thought about it too long. He had endured far more than she had. The strange thing was, she never would have guessed it judging by his outwardly happy-go-lucky attitude. She knew that Andrew valued Jamie’s friendship immensely. Now she was beginning to see why.
See yourself the way the Lord sees you.
Louisa stopped mid stitch and stared at the dress in her hands. She was in the middle of embroidering a spray of yellow roses on the bodice. It was a party dress for a young girl, not much older than Rebecca McBride. She had been staring at the fabric inch by inch all day.
Now she pulled the thread the rest of the way through, completing the stitch. She lifted the garment by the shoulders and held it at arm’s length. The creamy muslin spilled from her lap to brush the floor in front of her. She smiled. At that distance the dress looked like what it was, a beautiful garment in the process of being made into something special and unique. She had been staring at tiny little sections of it, fretting over whether her stitches were straight and even, whether they were too big or too small. She had been so worried over fragments of her work that she hadn’t stopped to look at the dress as a whole.
Holding the dress in front of her, Louisa didn’t see stitches and thread and fabric. She saw a young girl twirling across a dance floor, admired by her friends and relatives. She saw happiness and pride. How much of that came from the talents the Lord had given her? How much of that would come from the heart of the girl who was to wear the dress?
“Is something wrong, my darling?” her mother asked. She had been taking as much of her own work home as she could lately, as she began the laborious process of packing and shipping their things to England. Now she stood from the crate she had been stacking their books in, putting a hand to her back and stretching.
Louisa took one last look at the dress, then let her eyes drift to her mother. She saw their cramped front room with its shabby furniture and threadbare carpet, the water stain on the wall that grew darker when it rained. The small, musty room was where she was. It wasn’t who she was.
“Yes, Mother.” She exhaled, folding the dress carefully and laying it on the sofa next to where she sat. “Something is wrong.”
“Oh?” Her mother blinked, vague worry lines creasing her aging face.
Louisa stood, pushing her glasses up her nose and taking a few steps toward her mother. She expected her stomach to tie in knots and her heart to beat out of her chest, but a new calm descended on her.
“I should have told you before. I shouldn’t have kept it inside.”
“What is it, my darling?” Her mother’s face softened into a smile of maternal concern and affection. She stepped to meet Louisa in the middle of the room. “You have seemed rather out of sorts lately.”
Louisa took a deep breath, summoning all of her courage. She remembered Jamie’s kind words, the hugs of support from her friends. She remembered Andrew’s smiling face, and said a quick prayer for strength.
“Mother, I don’t want to move to England.”
Silence followed, the drumming of the rain on the roof an expectant hum.
“But … but you seemed so pleased about the idea when I first told you. I thought you were delighted by it.”
Louisa shook her head and reached out to take her mother’s hands.
“I’m sorry, Mother. I have to confess that I only pretended to like the idea because I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. I know that you want to move back to your home, with your sister. But Cape Ann is my home, and I … I can’t bear the thought of leaving it and leaving my friends behind.”
Her mother smiled at her with an uncomfortable hint of pity.
“My darling, I wish you had told me this before.” She sighed. “But even still, the plans have already been made. We have much ahead of us at home … in England, rather … and we have so little here.”
“I’m not sure that that’s entirely true.” Louisa contradicted her mother as carefully as she dared. The last thing she wanted to do was disrespect her mother, but new ideas flew to her mind quicker than she could grasp them. “I think … I think there may be options that we might not have considered.”
“Options?” Her mother’s expression was not entirely encouraging. But it wasn’t discouraging either.
“I know that you want to go home,” Louisa spoke as quickly as she could, before she lost her nerve, “and I most certainly don’t want to stop you. But I want to see if I can find a way to stay here.”
“I know that’s what you want, my darling, but we can’t all get what we want in this natural life, even if it’s what we deserve.”
“Perhaps I could find an apartment in town somewhere. I have friends who have apartments, James Darling, for one, and … and Andrew has recently moved into an apartment as well.”
“Yes, but they are men, Louisa. A woman cannot live alone, unchaperoned.”
Louisa wasn’t about to be deterred when a new world of hope was opening to her.
“True, but perhaps there are other young women out there who are looking for someone respectable to share living arrangements with. Or perhaps there is a family nearby that I could move in with. I could help take care of their children and work on the side.”
An incredible lightness filled her heart as she rattled off her ideas as they came to her. There were options. There were choices. She didn’t have to sit passively aside and wait for what she had mistakenly been calling Providence to take its course.
“I don’t think I would mind working my fingers to the bone if I knew that it would enable me to stay here,” she said.
And maybe, just maybe, Andrew will propose again. She shut the thought out as quickly as it whipped into her mind. She couldn’t afford that particular hope, not even now.
Her mother blinked at the onslaught of enthusiasm. She was at a loss for words, but Louisa could clearly see that she was trying to make these new, daring ideas fit into the tried and true ways that she knew.
“But what would happen if you found yourself in trouble?” she worried. “What if the job you took didn’t cover your room and board? What would you do in case of an emergency?”
A deep smile lit Louisa’s face. “I have friends who would take care of me. No, I know what you think,” she stopped her mother’s protest before it could start. “That they would turn their backs on me if they knew my financial situation. But Mother, I know you’re wrong. In fact, they’ve known for some time what our circumstances have been reduced to. They’ve known. And it doesn’t make any difference to them.”
The information came as a shock to her mother. She gaped for a moment before motioning Louisa to the sofa. The two of them sat together.
“Louisa,” she began slowly, “It’s not that I want you to be unhappy. Quite the contrary. I want every good thing in this world for you. But what you are suggesting is so …. My darling, it’s just so risky.”
“I … I know, Mother.”
“And what would I do without you?”
A lump formed in Louisa’s throat. “I’m … I’m not a child anymore, Mother.”
Somewhere deep in her heart, she knew that this moment would come. Only, she had never guessed it would be something she would have to point out, to her mother or to herself.
“I may not be a completely grown woman yet,” she went on, “but I will be. Soon. I think the time has come for me to take responsibility for my own life, as frightening as that may be.”
Her mother shook her head and reached out to take Louisa’s hands.
“My darling, I don’t care how old you are, you will always be my little girl. And I will always want to take care of you and protect you. Even if you are a grown woman. Even if you have a family of your own. Even if you are an ocean away.”
A giddy swirl of joy made Louisa’s face and fingers tingle.
“Are you saying I can stay here?”
“I’m saying,” her mother began with a sad smile, “that if you can find a respectable, agreeable situation before we are scheduled to leave, we can all sit down and talk about it, you, me, and Henry.”
It was as much as she had hoped for and more.
“Thank you.”
She lunged across the sofa to hug her mother. She had gone too long without hope. To have so much of it now filled her with a lightness she hadn’t felt all summer.
She let go of her mother, but still held her hands.
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Anything, my darling.” Her mother smiled, wiping away a tear.
“Will you ask the Lord to help guide us in this matter? To help us to find a way for all of us to be happy?”
“Of course.” Her mother laughed. She placed her hands on either side of Louisa’s face and planted a warm kiss on her forehead. “Of course I will, if you ask the Lord to take care of this weary old soul.”
Louisa smiled and hugged her mother again. “I know He’ll take care of the both of us.” Of all of us, she added, her thoughts drifting to her dear friends, to Andrew.
With that one happy turn of her thoughts, everything else in Louisa’s life began to take on a new light of hope. She worked as hard as ever, taking joy in the skills she had, for a change, instead of being ashamed of them. She helped her mother and Henry pack as many of their things as they could do without in the last few weeks before the scheduled departure. She even made the trip into Boston with Henry to ship several crates of books and belongings early. And even though a knot formed in her stomach when the porter at the shipping yards told them how much it would cost to ship the crates, she was able to take a deep breath and remember that money was only a temporary thing of the natural world. Still, she found herself glancing up to the ceiling of the shipping office and asking the Lord to help take her worry away.
Hope extended into other areas of her life too. She hadn’t intended on attending Rev. McBride’s meeting at Cliff House to discuss the status of their society and the Church at large, but when the day came, she found herself busy in the kitchen, helping Wren prepare refreshments. Any sort of conversation about the disturbances in the Church filled her with gloom and dread, but there was a simple joy in serving others that seemed to counteract all disagreements.
“I didn’t know there would be so many people here,” she commented to Wren as she joined her at the table, transferring cookies from a wide crockery jar to a silver platter.
“Papa warned us that there would be a good turn-out,” Wren answered.
“Everyone wants to know what’s going on,” Gayle added, pouring sugar into the bowl of the silver service. “Rowan was saying that even some of his friends in Philadelphia are interested in what is said tonight.”
“Rowan was saying?” Louisa arched an eyebrow. “I didn’t think he actually spoke.”
“He does too speak.” Gayle rolled her eyes at Louisa, and at Wren’s teasing smirk. “He talks to me all the time, I’ll have you know.”
Louisa’s eyes widened. She turned to Wren for confirmation.
Wren shrugged. “He does talk to her.”
The intriguing bit of information had to be forgotten. There was work to be done. As soon as the tea was ready and the snacks were laid out, the girls carried them to the large living room.
The furniture in the living room had been rearranged, and more chairs brought in so that everyone could have a seat. Almost every man in their small society was there, more than half of them with their wives. Conversations buzzed like the rolling of the waves on the beach below. As Louisa walked through the assembly offering refreshments, she noted that some of the talk was tense and angry, some was passionate, and some was worried and sad. She took a deep breath and trusted that the Lord would help them see Truth through the emotion.
“If I could have your attention.” Rev. McBride called the meeting to order.
The buzz of conversation ended with a sudden hush. Every eye in the room looked eagerly to Rev. McBride, Louisa’s included.
“Friends, I’ve called you here today to share my thoughts about the disturbances in the Church with you, but more importantly to seek your council on the matter. Our society is not made up of one person, one leader, or one idea, it is made up of every one of you, the men and women who fill and enrich each other’s lives. It is made up of the people whose lives we touch, whether they worship with us or not. The beliefs of every one of us form the whole of who we are. Let us begin with a prayer.”
As people lowered their heads and clasped their hands, Lo
uisa rushed to find a spot to set down her tray. She managed to squeeze her way to a corner of the room with Wren and Gayle as Rev. McBride spoke.
“Oh Lord, help us, your children, to face the struggles in front of us with kindness and compassion. Help us to see the light of Your Truth through the haze of our own wills. Let our differences of opinion be a means by which we can learn and grow, rather than wedges that drive us apart. But most especially, help us to think not of ourselves, but of our neighbors, and do unto them as we would have done to us. Amen.”
The echo of “Amen” filled the room, and as people raised their heads, the air hummed with expectation. Louisa glanced around the room as the neighbors she’d known for years settled in for the debate. She wished Andrew were there instead of manning his boat, far out at sea.
“Now,” Rev. McBride shifted his weight and his tone of voice, “I know you are all eager to get a clearer picture of what is at stake here.” His comment was met by murmurs of agreement. “To put it as simply as I dare, in the usual course of differing opinions and interpretations of the doctrines of our Church—something that is not at all uncommon in any faith or scholarly debate—disagreements have arisen. Unfortunately, in this case, several men on opposing sides cannot see their way to either smoothing over the variations of opinion, or letting each side agree to disagree. Whereas in the past, nuances in interpretations of the Lord’s Word have led to an enrichment of our understanding, this time it seems as though they will lead to the division of the trunk of the Church into two separate branches.”
A flood of murmurs passed through the room, some alarmed, some encouraging.
“But what exactly is the basis for these issues that makes them so divisive that both sides can’t at least agree to be civil?” Mr. Cleveland asked.
Rev. McBride turned to face him. “Well, one of the issues at the heart of the matter is whether the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg constitute revelation on par with the Word, or whether they are just very great, miraculous books that should be taken as a chief companion to the Word, and interpreted by the conscience of the individual. This unique doctrine of our Church is what sets us apart from the rest of the Christian brotherhood.”
