by Delia Parr
For the first time in months, Martha realized she felt a renewed spirit within. Her talk with Thomas gave her direction, and with a firm hold on her faith and a level of grit and pluck she had not been able to summon for a long time, she felt ready to face the future and its challenges.
Since it had been too late by the time Thomas had brought her home last night for Martha to go out to Aunt Hilda’s to confront Victoria about her behavior with Dr. McMillan, she would need every resource at her command today, because she was determined to see her daughter, right after she’d had something to eat.
She paused at the bottom of the steps, but Ivy was the only one in the kitchen. The moment Ivy looked over her shoulder from her place at the sink to see who was entering the room, she smiled.
“Awake at last, I see,” Ivy teased before she turned her attention back to the pan she had been scouring. “I’m afraid you slept right through breakfast and missed dinner, too, but there’s a teapot on the table and a plate of chicken stew for you in the oven. Let me know if the tea has turned as cool as the air today. I can heat up some more water in no time.” She set down the pan she had been cleaning and dried off her hands. “I’ve a mind to join you for a cup myself.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Thank you.” Martha retrieved the plate of stew from the oven and sat down.
Ivy took a place at the table across from her. “Those dirty pans can wait.”
Concerned by the exhaustion that creased Ivy’s features, Martha filled both of their teacups. “Maybe you should take a few days to rest up and let Jane take care of the kitchen like you said she was going to.”
Ivy sighed and passed her a small jug of honey. “We were all so exhausted, we were abed before you came home and never even heard you come upstairs. I trust you were able to help Mr. Crowder’s daughter?”
“Yes, I believe I did,” Martha replied. As she added two dollops of honey to her tea, she felt certain that by now Missy was a married woman.
“Victoria came by this morning hoping to see you. We told her you’d been called right back out again last night and were still asleep, so she decided to leave you to rest.”
Martha swallowed the lump in her throat. She attempted to eat some of the chicken stew, but she was so disappointed that she’d missed seeing Victoria, she barely tasted a thing.
When she heard a bit of a commotion, which sounded like furniture being pushed about, she glanced down the hall to the door to the new storage room. “Is there someone working in there?”
Ivy’s sky-blue eyes filled, oddly enough, with tears. “That would be my sister. She’s got Jane and Cassie with her, too. After you left yesterday, Fern hired a couple of men to move all the furniture down from the sitting room upstairs to the room we planned to use for more storage down here. They carried up a couple of other pieces for Jane and her daughter to use in their new bedroom.”
She paused and blinked back her tears. “There wasn’t enough daylight left to do more than shove everything in the rooms, which by rights should have had a good cleaning first. I told Fern there wasn’t any need to get all that cleaning and rearranging done today, but she’s got it in her head that Jane and her daughter will be sleeping upstairs tonight in a proper bedroom, just like the rest of us.”
Martha understood all too well how important it was to have a room to call your own when you were living in someone else’s home. She was not surprised that Fern understood that, too, and dismissed Ivy’s grumbling as nothing more than pure exhaustion speaking. She took one last bite of her stew and got to her feet. “I’ve had more rest than anyone, for a change, so if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see what I can do to help them.”
Ivy sniffled. “Would you? I’d like to help, too, but—”
“But you have a kitchen to tidy, which is work enough, so I’ll send Cassie in to help you.” Martha walked around the table to press a kiss to the top of Ivy’s head and grabbed a work apron before she headed toward a few hours of physical work that she hoped just might keep her mind off of Victoria—and the very handsome man Martha suspected was determined to make her his wife sooner rather than later.
Martha wiped the perspiration from her brow with the back of her hand. Even after cleaning and arranging the new downstairs sitting room, she still had a good bit of energy left, along with solid respect for Jane, who had been working nonstop just as hard as Martha had been. She was just a bit overwarm.
Anxious to get all of the furniture back into place now that they had finished cleaning it, she studied the room and weighed Jane’s suggestion. “I think you’re right. If you put both of the beds on that far wall, the rug should fit right in between them. That way, come winter, neither one of you will have to tolerate cold floorboards the moment you get out of bed.”
Jane handed her a fresh handkerchief she pulled out of her work apron and smiled as she wiped her own brow with another. “Having a rug at all is a luxury for us,” she admitted, “but you’ve done enough work for today. Why don’t you head downstairs and see how Miss Fern and Miss Ivy are doing and send Cassie up? She can help me unroll the rug and set it into place.”
Martha chuckled. “Right about now, I suspect Fern and Ivy are doing rather well. The last time I went downstairs to fetch some water for us, they were getting ready to take Cassie for a walk around Trinity so she would have a better sense of where she was living now. I suspect they probably included a stop at the general store to get a larger tin of licorice root while they were out and about, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
Jane’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “Those two women are just too good to be true. I’ve actually had to pinch myself, just to be sure I haven’t been sucked into a fairy tale with not one but two fairy godmothers.”
Martha tucked the handkerchief into her apron pocket. “You’re not alone. I feel the same way about them, and so do most of the folks in town. But from what I’ve learned from the two of them so far, the sick man you were caring for long after your wages ran out might have felt the same way about you. I know Fern and Ivy are very grateful that you did,” she added as she helped Jane to drag the braided rug.
Huffing a bit by the time they had the rug inside the room, Jane held one end of the rug while Martha positioned the other close to the wall. “I didn’t have any way to contact Mr. Ashford, but if I’d left that poor man all alone, he would have died in a matter of days, hungry and thirsty and lying in his own waste. No one deserves to die like that, alone and unloved, regardless of how a life has been spent or wasted,” she whispered, as if her choice to stay as his caretaker were so natural and so right, anyone in her position would have made the very same decision as she had.
Martha knew better, however. She dropped her end of the rug down and nodded for Jane to do the same. Once they’d unrolled the rug they had salvaged from storage, Martha was disappointed to see that it was well-worn and needed more than a few stitches to repair places that had separated, creating any number of opportunities for Jane or Cassie to trip.
But when she glanced over at Jane, the woman was smiling as if the rug were brand-new. “It’s going to be perfect, especially after I do a bit of mending. Let’s see how the beds fit,” Jane urged.
Martha followed her back out into the hall and mentally added gratitude as another good quality to Jane’s character. Then together they worked to bring in the two beds. The wooden headboards were heavy, the mattresses were bulky and awkward to handle, and by the time they had everything in place, she was in awe of Jane’s strength and stamina.
Those qualities were hard to dismiss, mostly because Martha was winded and had a twinge in her back, while Jane had enough extra breath to be humming while she worked. She moved about the room with apparent ease, even though she had already helped to clean and set up the sitting room downstairs while Martha had been sleeping the day away.
“Maybe we should take a minute to rest and plan out the rest of the room before we bring in anything else so we don’t have to waste o
ur energy moving things around in here,” Martha suggested as she rubbed the small of her back.
Jane cringed. “I’m sorry. I’ve worked you too hard, haven’t I? Why don’t you leave the rest to me? There’s not much else left out in the hall.”
“Only a couple of heavy trunks that even you shouldn’t attempt to handle on your own, not to mention a washstand and a pair of side chairs,” Martha argued, unwilling to admit she was less of a workhorse than Jane. “Do you always work this hard without stopping?”
Jane paused for a moment before she answered. “Not always. Only when I’m really trying to impress someone.”
“Why in heaven’s name would you think you had to impress me?”
“Because . . . because I know how important you are to Miss Fern and Miss Ivy and how much they value your opinion. I want you to think highly of me, and I want to reassure you that Miss Fern and Miss Ivy didn’t make a mistake hiring me and taking Cassie and me into their household,” Jane said quietly.
“Then have mercy and consider your goal met,” Martha quipped.
Jane’s eyes widened, and almost immediately she reached around to rub the small of her back, too.
Martha grinned. Darn if the woman wasn’t human after all. And a good honest woman, too.
Ivy chose that particular moment to walk into the room. “I see you two are making progress,” she said as she glanced around. “This is good, but you need to hurry up and finish so you have enough time to really pretty yourself up for supper, Martha. We’re having company.”
“Company? Since when?” Martha blurted.
“Since Thomas arrived just a few minutes ago asking to speak to you. I didn’t think you’d want him to see you looking as dirty as a plow horse at the end of a full day of planting, so I invited him to supper to give him a chance to talk to you then. He’ll be here in about an hour.” Then Ivy walked right back out of the room, giving Martha no time to argue with her.
“Am I really as dirty as a plow horse?” Martha asked and looked down at her skirts, which were coated with dust and grime.
She was actually caught by surprise when Jane answered her. “Just a bit more than I am, but I think once you wash off all that dirt on your face, you’ll look like yourself again. Now scoot. I’ll finish up here while you get ready for Thomas. I assume he’s someone important to you, isn’t he?”
Martha smiled and left the room with Jane’s question hanging in the air. There were many things Martha was willing to share with Jane and talk about. Thomas was just not one of them.
Supper was finally over.
The food had been delicious. The company had been more than enjoyable. Martha had even worn her Sunday dress for the occasion. Even so, her stomach was in knots as she walked with Thomas down the hallway when he was ready to leave.
He opened the back door and walked down the two steps before he turned around to bid her good night, his face level with hers and bathed in light from the hallway.
Her heart skipped a beat as his gaze traveled the contours of her face.
“Now that we’re finally alone,” he said, “I can tell you that you look very fetching tonight, and I’m overly pleased that you agreed to spend the day with me, day after tomorrow.”
She was tempted to reply in kind but did not dare give him any encouragement, especially when he climbed back up the bottom step. His nearness made it impossible for her to hold any thought but of loving this man and wanting to be his wife.
Her heart skipped a beat and then another when he climbed a second step higher. “After I delivered you home last night, I thought about the plan we’ve made for our future together and came up with a better one.”
Rooted in place, she swallowed hard. “You did?”
He nodded. “When we spend the day together, I think we should go to see Reverend Welsh to make arrangements for us to get married and go to New York together in a few weeks, just like I suggested. Since you’ve already made it clear you don’t want to look for a midwife in New York, you can double your efforts here when we get back, continue your work as a midwife, and I promise not to get annoyed every time you’re summoned away. What do you think about making that our new plan?”
She was surprised that he had not yet discovered Reverend Welsh was not in town and would not be for some time, and when Thomas bent down to kiss her, she placed her hand on his chest firmly enough to make him pause. “I thought we’d agreed that you’d go to New York alone in a few weeks and while you’re gone, I’d concentrate all of my free time on finding someone here who wants to replace me,” she countered. “And if I did accept this new idea of yours, I suppose you’d find it wholly acceptable that while I’m gone, Dr. McMillan would take over caring for all of the women and children here, wouldn’t you?”
He cringed. “I hadn’t really thought about that.”
She smiled. “That’s all right, Thomas. As long as one of us is thinking straight, that’s all that matters. But I do feel badly for teasing you,” she admitted, hoping she had not deceived him for too long about the one reason they definitely could not marry now.
He cocked a brow. “How so?”
“Reverend Welsh took his wife East for water treatments some time ago, and no one has any idea of when they’ll be back. Any plans you might want to make for us to get married and go to New York together are rather pointless without him here, don’t you think?”
He leaned forward until his face was so close to her own, his breath fanned her lips and left them tingling. “Believe me, Martha. If you said you’d marry me tonight, I could have a preacher here in a matter of hours, and if you doubt that I’d do exactly that, you don’t want to test me,” he whispered, then gave her a kiss that lingered just long enough to convince her that he meant every word he said.
He left her standing there wondering if his plan to marry before he went to New York was all that bad of an idea after all.
Until she thought of Victoria.
Concern about her daughter’s future eclipsed any she had about her own with Thomas, and she carried those worries back inside with her as Thomas headed to his own home. When she reached the privacy of her room, she dropped to her knees, pressed her forehead to the mattress on her cot, and folded her hands in prayer. “Heavenly Father, You know the troubles of my heart even when I’m too worried or too ashamed to bring them to You, but I’m coming to You now. As much as I long to marry Thomas and devote my energies to finding a woman to replace me, my first responsibility is to my daughter. But I’m uncertain of what I should do with her. She’s so young and so vulnerable and so innocent, I feel as if I must protect her as fiercely as I did when she was a young child. Yet even as the urge to protect her remains strong, help me to accept that my guidance must always be second to Yours because she is Your precious daughter, too.”
She paused for a moment to gather her thoughts, even though she knew that God understood them already, and continued praying long into the night until she felt the presence of His peace.
By the time she crawled into her bed, it was almost midnight. Her body was weary, but her soul was refreshed. She was confident in what she needed to do when she found a way to talk privately with Victoria in the morning.
And she would, as long as God was by her side to help her in case she faltered or lost her way when she did.
9
Martha was a woman on a mission when she slipped out of the confectionery just after sunrise the next morning.
Armed with her rock-solid faith and a steaming crock of bread pudding she cradled with both hands, she approached Aunt Hilda’s cottage just on the outskirts of the southern edge of town. Smoke twirling up from the chimney promised a warm fire that would ease the chill that had roosted in her bones.
She headed down the familiar path that led along the side of the cottage to the kitchen in the back. The closer she got to the back door, the faster her heart was beating. When she finally stood directly in front of the door, she paused to whisper a prayer before
tapping lightly on the weathered wood. When no one answered the door, she knocked a little harder.
This time the door cracked open just a bit before it swung wide open, and Victoria stepped back to let her enter. “Mother! Come in. What are you doing up and about this early?”
“I haven’t seen you for more than a few minutes since I’ve gotten back home,” she began. “I thought I’d invite myself to breakfast and bring along something sweet to eat for everyone. Aunt Hilda has many, many talents, but she simply has no knack for baking,” she added in a whisper before giving her daughter a quick kiss and handing her the crock of bread pudding.
Hilda Seymour, her eccentric aunt-by-affection, had in fact been the most requested afternurse for miles around until last winter, when she finally gave up staying with new mothers after their deliveries. Now seventy-eight, she still provided new mothers with honey from the beehives she tended with her husband. She also used the honey to make honey wine, which was an essential ingredient in the hot toddies that helped to ease the grumbling pains that often followed a delivery.
Aunt Hilda held an exalted status in Trinity as the last of the original settlers, but she held an equally special place in Martha’s heart. In addition to being a close friend of Martha’s Grandmother Poore, who had been Trinity’s first midwife, Aunt Hilda was her most trusted confidante. She also possessed such deep faith and uncommon good sense that Martha relied on her heavily for advice and comfort.
In all truth, if Aunt Hilda had not been here after Victoria had run away last year and during Fern and Ivy’s absence more recently, Martha was not certain how she would have survived with only Grace and Bird to listen to her troubles.
