Reluctant Brides Collection

by Cathy Marie Hake

  “But I shouldn’t be glad he’s gone.”

  “You should be glad that you’re safe now and your children are safe.”

  “Runnin’ and hidin’ all the time is no way to live,” Alvira murmured.

  “No, you’re right about that.” Percy had had her share of running and hiding. She wanted to be finished, but she knew she was not.

  The camp is the best hiding place I’ve found, she thought, but lately she had more and more trouble hiding from herself, much less anyone else.

  Daniel Wells was waiting at his daughter’s house when Percy and Alvira returned to the row of buildings. He looked gently upon Alvira and opened his arms to her. Unmindful of the roomful of people, Alvira walked directly to Daniel and received his embrace. He held her tightly as she buried her head in his shoulder.

  Percy glanced at Josh, who in turn glanced at Lacey.

  Alvira returned to working with Percy in the dining hall and took charge of the garden once again. But now, instead of working every waking moment of the day, she accepted an occasional afternoon off. She wanted to be free to see Daniel when he came to see Lacey, which now seemed to be at least once a week, sometimes more. Little time passed before Lacey, Josh, and Percy realized that it was not his children that Daniel came to see. After a perfunctory game of checkers with Adam or a lunch with Lacey, Daniel seemed to prefer a long afternoon stroll with Alvira.

  One day Lacey insisted that Alvira and Percy join them all for lunch. Percy could see for herself the looks exchanged between Daniel and Alvira. When Lacey rose to clear dishes and carry them into the kitchen, Percy sprang up to help her; Josh was right on their heels.

  “Did you see that, Lace?” Josh asked.

  “You mean the way his eyes look?” Lacey responded.

  Josh nodded. “He hasn’t had that light in his eyes—”

  “In eight years.” Lacey finished her brother’s thought. “Not since Mama got sick.”

  “What do you think this means?” Percy asked.

  Lacey laughed. “You might not have your kitchen help for much longer.”

  Josh nodded. “Papa probably never thought about marrying again. He would never have gone looking.”

  “But when God puts someone in your path the way He put Alvira at the lighthouse,” Lacey said, “it’s hard to ignore.”

  The door between the dining room and kitchen opened. Daniel stuck his head in. “You’re talking about me, aren’t you?”

  The trio looked shocked, then burst out laughing. “Yes, we were, Papa,” Lacey finally said.

  “I thought so. You should have been back long ago for more dishes. Come back in here and I’ll give you something to talk about.”

  They regrouped around the table, joining Travis, the boys, Sally, and Alvira, who looked strangely nervous.

  Daniel took Alvira’s hand. “When the minister comes again,” he said simply, “we want to have a ceremony. Nothing fancy, so don’t outdo yourself, Lacey. After that, Alvira and Sally will move to the lighthouse.”

  “Papa!” Lacey exclaimed. “How wonderful!” She kissed her father’s cheek and embraced Alvira. “Does TJ know?”

  Daniel nodded. “He gave his blessing last week.”

  “Miss Lacey,” Sally said, “does this make you my sister?”

  Lacey grinned. “I suppose it does, in a way. I always wanted a sister.”

  The smile on Percy’s face was sincere, if strained. What she had hoped for had come true. Alvira’s story would have a happy ending. She would be cared for and treasured as she deserved. It was Percy’s own story that strained the smile. Could anything turn her story around?

  “Percy?” Suddenly she heard Josh’s voice piercing through the resounding congratulations. “Are you all right?” His brown eyes, guileless and clear, held her, even from across the table; he was asking because he truly wanted to know.

  She choked and said, “Yes, of course.”

  Chapter 26

  Josh moved toward Percy. “I’m afraid I don’t believe you,” he said softly. No one else heard what he said. “You don’t look yourself.”

  She shrugged. “It’s the announcement. Alvira is going to marry your father and move to the lighthouse. It will be hard to find someone to replace her.”

  Josh raised an eyebrow, skeptical. Percy ignored him. Plastering a smile on her face, she hugged Alvira and Daniel enthusiastically.

  “I’m very happy for both of you,” she said lightly. And she did mean it, despite what Joshua might think. “But I’m afraid I’m going to have to cut short my celebrating. I have some things I must do before supper.”

  “I should be helping you,” Alvira said.

  “No, no,” Percy countered. “You stay and enjoy your afternoon. Come back to work when you’re ready.”

  After a quick round of farewells, Percy successfully excused herself, but she did not head back to the dining hall. Instead, she stumbled into the woods behind Lacey’s house. Sobs welled up inside her, unsubsiding, relentless. Racing against the rising force, she hurried her footsteps. Percy Morgan wanted to be far away from anyone else when the dam burst. Weeks, months, even years of grief pressed against the controlled facade she had erected and lived within. She tramped into the forest, mindless of where she went, not seeing the chipmunks that used to startle her with their scampering or the spreading tree roots that threatened to trip her. Putting one foot in front of the other more and more rapidly, she pressed on blindly.

  At last she fell to the ground, exhausted, and gave way to the tidal wave within her. Her shoulders heaved with her sobbing and the torrent that came from her eyes spilled down her face and splashed the ground beneath her. The sounds that came from her mouth were foreign to her. Not in five tumultuous years had she allowed herself such release, such protest, such catharsis. Percy lay flat on the ground, her head buried in her hands. It mattered not that the light beige of her dress became layered with black earth. Percy was not thinking of the moment when she would have to pick herself up and return to camp to prepare an evening meal. At the moment, she hardly thought it possible that she could do so. It seemed more likely that she would rise and circle around the camp and keep on walking till her feet carried her far away from this place where the truth was so unendurably present.

  She did not hear the footsteps behind her. When he spoke her name, she raised her head awkwardly and looked around. “Joshua!”

  “Yes, it’s me. I told you I didn’t believe you.”

  Percy sat up and began wiping tears from her cheeks with the back of one hand. She was unable to speak.

  Josh sat in the dirt beside her and opened his arms. Without even the slightest hesitation, Percy allowed herself to fall against his chest. With his arms around her, he stroked her black hair with one hand. Josh said nothing for the longest time. He simply held Percy as she shivered with grief. Gradually, the tears subsided, the shaking dissipated, and Percy began to feel composed. She pulled herself upright, out of his embrace.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t usually…it’s just that…well…” An explanation for her uncharacteristic lack of control seemed impossible. She returned to wiping tears off her face.

  Josh smiled gently. “As fond as I am of Alvira, somehow I think this has a greater cause than just the loss of your kitchen assistant.”

  Percy sighed heavily. “It’s a long story.”

  Josh shrugged. “I have time. I have a feeling it would do you good to tell your story.” Percy pulled her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around them. “I’ve never told it before. I’m not sure where to begin.” She could hardly believe she heard herself speak those words, so contrary to her resolve that her past would not get in the way of her future.

  Josh stretched his legs out in front of him and leaned back on one elbow. “How about if you start with why you know a lot about hand-carved European crown moldings but not so much about ordinary vegetable gardens.”

  Now Percy laughed through her tears. “I
t’s just that while I was growing up, we had a lot of crown moldings, but I never saw where the vegetables came from. The cook brought them in, I suppose.”

  “The cook?”

  “Yes, we had a cook and two maids and a gardener who looked after my mother’s exotic idea of a garden.”

  “Two maids and a gardener?” Josh echoed.

  Percy nodded. “And of course there was always a governess about the place, lest my sister and I run off to some corner of the house where we were not permitted to play.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister.”

  A cloud washed across Percy’s face. “I did have one. I’m not sure if I still do or if she would want to acknowledge being related to me after all these years.”

  “How many years?”

  “Five. Almost six.”

  Josh waited patiently for Percy to continue. For a fleeting moment, she considered cutting the conversation short and jumping up to lead the way back to the mess hall. After all, she still had an evening meal to prepare. But Josh’s shining brown eyes cut through her resolve. With a sigh, she plunged in.

  “I grew up in Connecticut. At the time I didn’t know it, but we were quite wealthy. My friends all had the same standard of living. As a child, I didn’t know anything different.”

  “What did your father do to earn such an income?”

  “He was a banker. The president of a bank, actually. He worked all the time. We hardly saw him. I think that was part of why my mother was so withdrawn. She placed far more value on those flowers of hers than they were worth. I can see that now. She just needed something to devote herself to, since my father did not seem to care if she was around. Mother always talked about how she had failed to give him a son, as if that might have made things different. Some of the money was Mother’s, actually. She had inherited a tidy sum when they married. Her family has had money for generations. The Percy name had to be steadfastly upheld by money.”

  “Percy is a family name?”

  Percy nodded. “My mother’s maiden name. I think I was supposed to be a boy to carry on both the Percy and the Morgan names. I disappointed them both from the start. Anyway, the money was Mother’s, but she trusted Father implicitly. As soon as they were married, she signed everything over to him and never gave it another thought.

  “Then one day Father announced he had to go to Chicago on bank business. He did that from time to time, so it was not unusual. But this time he did not come back. Mother waited weeks for word from him, and none ever came. We found out what he had done from another bank officer.”

  “What had he done?” Josh queried.

  “He had been embezzling bank funds for years, more than a decade. He did have a meeting set up in Chicago, but he never got there. He just disappeared with all of Mother’s money and hundreds of thousands that he had taken from the bank. It wasn’t until after he disappeared that anyone really studied the books he kept. He had also mortgaged the house, which was my mother’s. It was the Percy family home, and he mortgaged it heavily, then left town with the money. The bank foreclosed almost immediately. Mother had no way to repay the loan, of course. There was nothing left in their account. Father had taken it all, every penny. We had to move out, but we did not really have any place to go.”

  “Where did you end up?”

  “My mother had a second cousin, Louise. They had known each other when they were little but had not been close as adults. Mother never really liked Louise, but what were we to do? We moved to New Jersey to live with Louise.”

  “Something must have happened there, or you would not have ended up here,” Josh said, prodding her to keep going with her story.

  “Mother was simply too frail. She hated that we had to go to Louise, and while Louise did take us in, she was none too happy about it. She never let a day go by without reminding Mother what a scoundrel she had married. Mother just started to disappear. At first she claimed exhaustion from the ordeal and wanted to rest for hours at a time between meals. Then she started coming out of her room only in the late afternoon. Eventually she did not come out at all, not even for meals. My little sister, Ashley, and I took food in to her and pleaded with her to eat. We wanted so much for her to get better and to stand up to Louise. But she never did. She just grew weaker and weaker every day until one morning she did not wake up. I’ll never forget Ashley’s scream.”

  “Ashley found her?”

  Percy nodded.

  “How old was she?”

  “Seven. A seven-year-old girl should not wake up to find her mother dead.”

  “No, surely not,” Josh agreed.

  “After Mother died, Louise was even more irritated with me. I look a great deal like my father, and she blamed me for his actions.”

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Nevertheless, that is what happened. Louise found a boarding school somewhere in the Midwest and shipped Ashley off one day while I was out of the house. She wouldn’t tell me where.”

  “That must have been awful!”

  “It was. I begged and begged to know. She insisted it was for Ashley’s own good, that the only way to save Ashley was to separate her from the Morgan family completely. But I was sixteen, nearly grown. I suppose Louise thought it was too late to redeem me. She simply said that I would have to leave.”

  “She threw you out?”

  Percy nodded. “She gave me one week to make some plans, then told me I was on my own. She gave me enough money for room and board for about a month.”

  “And you’ve been on your own ever since.”

  “I gave her money back. Just left it on the doorstep one day. She hated me. I didn’t want to touch her money.”

  “I can understand.”

  “I got a job washing dishes in a restaurant. It seemed to be the only skill I had. I hadn’t been raised to actually work for a living, after all. I was supposed to marry into another rich family, multiply the family fortune, and live happily ever after. But after what happened, the young men who used to come calling didn’t even want to mention my name.”

  “So how did you learn to cook?”

  “By watching in the restaurant while I washed dishes. I didn’t care what work I did. I only wanted to find Ashley. I knew she was somewhere in the Midwest. I thought perhaps she was in Chicago. All I know is that the school was called Miss Bowman’s School for Girls.”

  “That isn’t a lot to go on.”

  “No, it isn’t. I never found Ashley. I worked in one restaurant after another in Pennsylvania and Ohio, just trying to keep moving west. Finally in Indiana I applied for a job as a cook, rather than washing dishes. They didn’t ask for references. They only watched me cook. I got the job. And you know the rest after that.”

  “What about Ashley?”

  Percy shrugged. “I never found her. I wish I could, but I don’t think I can. Louise sends all my letters back unanswered.”

  Josh looked puzzled. “You’re not likely to find Ashley way up here. So why did you come?” The tears began again, slowly. “I’ve given up,” she whispered hoarsely. “I can only hope she’s happy. She’s almost thirteen now. Perhaps she found someone at the school who would really care for her. And I hope deep in my heart that she knows I had nothing to do with banishing her.”

  “I’m sure she does. You must not give up hope, Percy.”

  A tear slipped off Percy’s face and dribbled down her collar. “I hoped for as long as I could. I can’t anymore.”

  Josh reached for her and took her in his arms again. “When you are weak and powerless, that is when God is strong and mighty. You must not give up hope, but you must hope in the right thing.”

  “I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.”

  “When TJ was eight years old, Lacey told him that he was God’s business. Look how that sustained him. You’re God’s business, Percy Morgan. He sent me here today just as surely as He sent Lacey into TJ’s life all those years ago. You must always hope. And we will find Ashle
y.”

  Chapter 27

  When Percy awoke the next morning, she could hardly believe what had happened in the forest with Joshua. As her mind moved into its morning mode, rising to awareness of the day’s tasks, her pulse quickened at the implications of what she had done. No longer could she hide behind a facade of competence. No longer could she insist that she was fine to his probing eyes and expect that he should believe her.

  Unexpectedly, relief washed over her. She got out of bed, reached automatically for her gray work dress, and began to dress. On the floor in a heap was the beige dress she had worn the day before, soiled with the forest earth. Percy stooped and picked it up. She fingered the hem, which had trailed in the dirt for miles until it was black, and reflected on her flight. Running from Daniel and Alvira’s happiness had been an irresistible impulse, an overwhelming wave that she could not contain. But after five long years of running, she was finished. Josh had gently turned her back toward camp, taking her hand in his as they retraced the rugged miles together. Now, on this morning, instead of waking with fear and regret, she relished the relief that someone, especially Josh, at last knew the truth.

  After breakfast, Alvira insisted on cleaning up by herself and she shooed Percy out the door with instructions to relax and enjoy the morning. The impulse to protest was fleeting. Instead, Percy stepped outside into the sunshine and wandered aimlessly toward the garden. The green beans were doing well and there would be plenty of radishes and onions. She was anxious to know how well the carrots were growing and she fingered the lacy green topper of a plant at the edge of the patch. Would it hurt to pull up just one carrot to see how the whole row was faring?

  “If you pull it up to see how big it is, you can’t put it back.”

  Percy spun around to see Joshua standing, smiling, at the far end of the garden. “The carrot,” he said, gesturing toward her fingers on the carrot top. “I used to pull them up to see how big they were getting. It made Mama mad, but I was so curious I couldn’t help myself.”