Lilac Spring

by Ruth Axtell Morren

Her eyes searched his, and he had a fleeting sense of how much more wrenching and painful the death of a loved one would be to a man than to a boy. He turned away from Cherish and looked down the lawn toward the inlet beyond. The tide had filled it, just as Cherish’s words had filled his mind without any conscious resistance on his part.

  “I never think about it,” he answered honestly. “I was awfully young—we both were—when Emmy and I ‘pledged our troth.’ Then we just kept the promise, although we didn’t see each other but just once a year after I came up here for my apprenticeship.

  “When I turned nineteen, I asked your father for permission to get married. Although I’d already fulfilled the terms of my apprenticeship and didn’t really need his consent, he counseled me to wait until I was at least twenty-one, with more money saved up.”

  He looked straight ahead to some indefinite point in the center of the painted porch floor. “His advice made sense. At that age you don’t expect to lose someone younger than yourself, just like that, even though we go through it all the time. I’d already lost an older brother and sister, and my father never came back from the Grand Banks.”

  He cleared his throat, the recollection of those days coming back to him as he spoke about them. “Then she got rheumatic fever and died, just a month shy of my twenty-first birthday.” He’d felt bitter about it for a long time. Just when it had faded, he didn’t know.

  “Do you still miss Emma after all these years?”

  He shook his head slowly. “It’s as I said—I guess I’m married to boats now.”

  “You know I love you, Silas.”

  He lifted his gaze to hers, her words arresting him.

  Before he could figure out what she meant, she asked softly, “Don’t you love me?”

  Her big blue eyes waited for his answer. He could feel himself redden. He rubbed the back of his neck, at a loss for an answer. How was he supposed to answer such a question? Was she talking about their old familiar affection for each other, developed over the years? Or that sublime sentiment she had been describing to him? He managed to tear his gaze away.

  “Well…uh…yes.”

  “You don’t have to say it as if you’re going to choke on it!”

  His face grew warmer. “I’m not! Of course I love you. I’ve known you since you were a little girl. You’re like a sister to me.”

  When he looked at her again, she was gazing away from him.

  He felt the weight of responsibility. Cherish trusted him. Winslow trusted him. How could he live up to that trust when he found himself yearning to kiss those sweet lips inches from him?

  Silas lay on his bed, hearing the lap of the waves below boxing him in. He could no longer push aside Cherish’s question. Don’t you love me?

  She’d said I love you in her frank, childlike way. She loved the boy who’d come to Haven’s End fourteen years earlier. But it was a naive, girlish emotion that would soon pass once she’d been back a while and realized Silas van der Zee was the same uneducated man she’d left two years ago, who’d never been beyond this coast, who never could come anywhere near the kind of gentlemen she’d met in her travels. Soon she’d outgrow her childish fancy and turn admiring woman’s eyes on someone like Warren Townsend.

  But what about Silas himself? Don’t you love me? Why did the question make him squirm like a pale grub dug out of the dark, damp earth and exposed to the unfamiliar light and air?

  What did he know of love? Did he even know how to love?

  He loved boats. He could hold on to that one fact. He loved the feel of smooth wood emerging from the sanding, knowing it was something tangible, something he could force and shape and tame. He loved the look of a rift-sawn timber with its straight grain, knowing its superior strength, its unlikeliness to cup or warp in the water. He loved the smell of cedar and oak and pine that permeated the boat shop even up to his room, the only home he’d known for the past fourteen years.

  He loved the challenge of taking straight, strong, unbending logs and cutting and shaping them into a buoyant craft. He loved the triumph of seeing that craft ply through the waters, daring that depthless expanse of waves, defying nature itself when it brought even the wind to do its bidding through that mathematical precision of setting sails at a certain angle to move forward.

  He loved the challenge, the speed, the feel of that maiden, the sailing vessel.

  But loving a woman—a real, flesh-and-blood woman? Silas sat up, his elbows on his knees, his chin on his fists, too uncomfortable with the question to lie still. Again he felt unable to respond, as if he were untaught or immature in this aspect of the organ called the heart. It seemed to him it had stopped developing when he was twelve and had left home.

  He still remembered waving goodbye as his boat pulled away from the harbor. Little Emma, come to see him off, holding his mother’s hand. His mother, still looking lost, as she had since she’d received the news that his father wasn’t coming back from his fishing expedition. And his older sister with her harsh, Nordic looks prematurely middle-aged although she was only in her twenties, since she’d had to take over the running of the household.

  Silas had been one of the last of the siblings to leave home. Almost all the others, older, had already found employment elsewhere.

  So Silas had arrived at Winslow’s Shipyard and his heart had given itself over to boats. He’d lived among men and boats ever since. The only women he’d had contact with had been Cherish’s mother, a kindly, beautiful woman, and the plainer, more acerbic Mrs. Sullivan. With both, their conversation had been limited to Wash your hands, Silas. Wash your face. Don’t forget to scrub behind your ears. Clean your plate, Silas. Get your elbows off the table.

  And then there had been Winslow’s cherished daughter, radiant and outgoing and sensitive to his every mood.

  He didn’t know how to cope with these strange new feelings she was stirring in him. He felt stunted like a gnarled apple tree, beaten down by the salt-laden winter winds, standing squat and twisted beside the tall, majestic firs surrounding it.

  Cherish talked about that high-flown sentiment called “love.” Was Silas’s heart even capable of housing such a noble-sounding emotion?

  Tonight was the night she would find herself once again in Silas’s arms.

  He might not realize what a wonder true love was, but Cherish Winslow was going to show him. She’d make herself irresistible to him.

  After taking a sponge bath, careful not to touch her curls, Cherish donned clean underclothes, stockings, corset, coiled wire bustle and petticoats. Then she turned to her wardrobe.

  Her dress already hung on the door, pressed that morning. Every ruffle stood up, every pleat lay perfectly flat. She lovingly took the pale blue dress off its hanger. An original Worth creation. Cousin Penelope had presented her to Mr. Worth himself in Paris, and he’d designed the gown for her, allowing her to see it modeled on one of the young French mannequins.

  She buttoned the tiny row of buttons up her front and smoothed down the formfitting bodice. The upper skirt was formed en tablier, like a puffed-up apron draped across the front in loose folds and gathered in the rear to fall gracefully from the bustle. The underskirt was a shade of deeper blue and trimmed in a wide pleated hem.

  With a glance of satisfaction in her full-length mirror, Cherish turned her attention to the details of hair and face. She rummaged in her jewelry box and brought out a black velvet choker with its amethyst pendant.

  After placing it around her neck, she brushed her hair carefully, curling each ringlet around her fingers. Now she brought them up high on her head and fastened them with a tortoise clasp, and arranged the cascade of curls down her back and around her shoulders. Her amethyst earrings dangled from her ears. She frowned at her reflection, wishing she could use rouge the way the ladies in France did, but Aunt Phoebe would be liable to make a public spectacle of her, sending her upstairs to scrub it off her face. Instead she contented herself with putting a little rice powder on her face and
pinching her cheeks to bring out the color. Finally she dabbed a little eau de toilette on her temples and behind her ears.

  She stood and gave herself a final inspection in the glass. It was not a ball gown by any means; she knew enough not to wear anything too fancy for Haven’s End. What would Silas think? That was the only thing that really concerned her.

  Sending a prayer heavenward, asking the Lord to bless her endeavors, she straightened the articles in her room, then left to see whether her first guests had arrived.

  The corridor was crowded with young people. Cherish could feel Annalise’s hand clutch her arm in resistance, but she ignored it and blithely sallied forth into the crowd, greeting her friends and presenting Annalise to everyone she spoke to.

  Her eyes scanned the hallway for Silas, but she didn’t see him. Disappointed, she entered the parlor with Annalise. Warren, taller than most of the people present, walked over to them immediately.

  “There you are.” He turned his gaze from Cherish to his sister, and she could see the question in his eyes.

  “Yes, here we are. I promised Annalise to stay with her until she is better acquainted with my friends.” She didn’t explain to him how reluctant his sister had been to come into the parlor at all. “Would you be so kind as to get us each a glass of punch?”

  “Certainly.”

  After that, Cherish was swamped with friends stopping to chat with her. The music started up in the opposite parlor and she wished she could loosen Annalise’s hold on her and seek out Silas. She had seen him come in. He had given them a brief greeting and left again, and she hadn’t seen him since. He was probably out on the veranda chatting with the menfolk.

  Finally, feeling she was being released from an ordeal, Cherish left Annalise sitting with Aunt Phoebe and one of her friends and headed for the doorway. There Warren accosted her.

  “Where’s Annalise?” he asked her.

  Biting back a retort, she answered sweetly, “See, there? I left her with Aunt Phoebe and Mrs. Drummond.”

  “I wanted to thank you for being so patient with her. She’s—” he hesitated, looking down at the cup in his hand “—very shy.”

  Cherish felt her impatience evaporate, and her heart warmed to the man who showed such concern for his sister.

  “Yes, I noticed. I think she’ll be all right. Perhaps we can ask one of the young men to dance with her.”

  He smiled in enthusiasm. “Yes, that would be grand. Now, how about you? Can I interest you in a dance?”

  Cherish swallowed her frustration. Perhaps she should dance with him and get it over with. That way she could reserve a waltz for Silas later. She’d gone over the waltzes with her piano-playing friend Alice, who would play when Jacob and his fiddler friends took a break.

  She nodded her acceptance, and the two of them entered the other parlor, where furniture and carpets had been cleared from the center of the room. Cherish allowed Warren to swing her around in the spirited dance amidst the other dancers. One dance led to another. About halfway through the second, she spotted Silas in the doorway. She lifted an arm in greeting and he nodded to her with a smile.

  As the music ended, she and Warren moved off the dance floor. “You dance very well,” he told her as he led her toward the doorway. “Let me get you some refreshment before the musicians start up again. I’ll bring Annalise back with me.”

  “Yes, do.” Maybe he could dance with his sister.

  She turned to Silas with a smile. “Where have you been keeping yourself all evening?”

  “Around,” he answered with a lazy grin. His thick hair was swept back from his forehead. Darker sideburns contrasted with the burnished gold of the rest of his hair. His gray eyes were alight with humor. “You are looking quite the fashion plate.”

  “I trust that is a compliment.”

  He tilted his head in acknowledgment. “Most certainly. Another Paris creation?” he asked with a nod at her gown.

  “Yes, monsieur. I’ve been looking for you,” she said after a moment.

  “What for? To foist some young lady on me to dance with?”

  She laughed, thinking that was precisely what she intended. “Why aren’t you dancing, anyway?”

  “I told you, I’m not much of a dancer.”

  “You never will be if you don’t practice.”

  At that moment Warren returned with Annalise.

  “Silas, you remember Warren Townsend and his sister, Annalise.”

  “Yes, of course. Pleased to see you both again,” he said, giving Warren his hand and smiling kindly at Annalise.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” Warren replied.

  They exchanged pleasantries as Cherish sipped the cold fruit punch. She heard the first notes of the piano and looked for a place to set down her cup.

  Her arm, stretched toward a low table, stopped, paralyzed, when she heard Warren’s low, friendly tone behind her. “Would you mind escorting Annalise onto the dance floor? I’d like to dance with Cherish and don’t want to leave my sister unescorted. Although she’ll deny it, she’s a wonderful dancer.”

  “Uh, of course,” Silas said after a second’s hesitation. “Miss Townsend? Would you care to dance this waltz with me?”

  Cherish turned, seeing the look of fright on Annalise’s face. For a moment she felt relief, certain Annalise would turn Silas down.

  But her brother pushed her gently toward Silas, urging, “Please say yes. Otherwise everyone will think Silas was turned down by the prettiest girl in the room.”

  Annalise’s eyes widened in concern. Silas stood by, saying nothing. The girl hesitated between the two men.

  Finally Silas held out his arm, smiling encouragement. “They’ll understand once they see me waltz.”

  Annalise returned his smile and put her hand on his arm.

  Everything faded out for Cherish—the sounds of the waltz, the babble of voices around her—as she watched Silas, arm in arm with Annalise, walk toward the dance floor. The distance between him and Cherish increased with each step, making it a reality she could do nothing to alter.

  As if coming back to the present, she heard Warren’s voice. “So, may I have the honor of this dance?”

  She licked her lips, tempted to give him the set-down of his life. How dare he? He and his stupid little sister with her shy, childish ways! Cherish swallowed the words that roiled through her mind, knowing how unfair they were, but unable to stop from feeling hurt and humiliated even as she nodded her assent.

  She followed the dance steps like an automaton while her heart ached with the feeling of betrayal. The warm smile she thought reserved for her, the encouraging words she’d always received from Silas, the gentle teasing were not for her alone. They were for any young lady that came along.

  Obviously, he’d felt sympathy for Annalise. Was that all Silas felt for Cherish, as well?

  He’d always been her big brother, pal, confidant…hero. But now she wanted something more from Silas.

  As the strains of the waltz played on, Cherish refused to believe her years of waiting for Silas had been in vain. There was no other man for her. Didn’t Silas see that?

  Chapter Five

  Silas held Annalise gingerly. Heaven knew, he wasn’t used to dancing the waltz, and his partner looked as if she was ready to expire at any moment. He glanced helplessly across the room, but relief was not forthcoming.

  Cherish was in Townsend’s arms, smiling up at something he was saying as they moved in time to the music. They both looked as if they belonged in a ballroom in Boston rather than in a front parlor in Haven’s End.

  He turned back to Miss Townsend as the two moved awkwardly among the circling dancers. “Smile, or everyone’ll think I’m stepping on your feet.”

  The look of fright in the girl’s large green eyes gave way to a slight relaxing of her facial features.

  “That’s better. Even if you can’t manage a smile, at least it doesn’t look as if you’re being tortured.”

  A t
iny, tentative smile appeared on her pink lips.

  “Getting better and better. I admit I’m not much of a dancer, but I don’t want to pass myself off as a worse clodhopper than I already know myself to be. I was convinced I couldn’t waltz, but I have it on the best authority that it’s as easy as counting one, two, three. Of course, having left school young, I don’t know as I’m too capable in that area either.”

  Her smile grew, and he took a deep breath of relief. He couldn’t abide the thought that the girl was here by force, only to please her brother. “Thatta girl.”

  Silas kept up a flow of conversation as they danced. It occurred to him he was chattering. It reminded him of the day Cherish had been waltzing with him in the meadow. He wondered now whether she had been as nervous as he felt right now.

  No—he dismissed the notion as soon as it was formed. Cherish was the most poised girl he knew. He glanced at her again across the dancers, remembering her as a little lady even at the age of five when she’d come to make his acquaintance on his first day at the boat shop.

  “—so many years.”

  He glanced back at Miss Townsend. “Excuse me?”

  “I said you’ve been in Haven’s End so many years.”

  “That’s right. I always knew I wanted to build boats, so I was glad to find a place to apprentice.”

  His gaze roved over Cherish and Townsend once again.

  She certainly seemed to be at ease, speaking with Warren as they glided across the dance floor, and it seemed to Silas that she was as graceful in a meadow as in a ballroom.

  He, himself, was finding it hard to keep up a flow of conversation and at the same time mind the placement of his feet. Deciding to concentrate on his steps, he stopped talking.

  When the song ended and another started up, he wished for a moment that it was Cherish in his arms on the dance floor. But after that brief tuneless waltz in the meadow, he had resolved to avoid dancing with her. Holding her in his arms, however innocently, put too many crazy thoughts into his head.