by Delia Parr
“Absolutely right. I’ve got a list of my own to take care of there, too. Is there anything we can bring back for you while we’re there, Widow Cade?”
“If you could see if there are any letters waiting for me, I’d be most grateful. You might check for Victoria, too. She’s expecting to hear back from her brother. I’ll give you a note to let Mr. Sweet know that I’ve asked you to call for our mail and ask him to put the charge for any postage on my account,” she suggested. “Do you know if Mr. Dillon had time to speak to Will before he left a few weeks ago?”
Grinning, Fancy nodded. “He stopped on his way out of town. That two-dollar reward for young William is safely put away in that new bank, though he don’t seem too pleased about it. He did ask me to mention his spyglass. Any chance he can get it back?”
“I still haven’t seen those grades of his, so tell him I’ll try to stop by in the next day or two with the spyglass in hand,” she promised, feeling guilty for having been too busy to even give the spyglass a thought.
He nodded and waited while Martha scribbled out her note before he left with Cassie. To make herself useful, she donned a work apron before she tackled the dirty baking pans and dishes stacked by the sink. She pumped water into a basin in the sink and took hold of the baking pan on the top of the pile. Part of a gooey honey bun spun with cinnamon stuck in one corner was too tempting to waste, and she swept it up with two fingers and gobbled it down before scrubbing the pan clean.
Half an hour later, she had cleaned every single pot and pan and stored them away, but she had also devoured tiny remnants of apple strudel, several burnt molasses cookies, half a bran muffin, and pieces of three broken pretzels.
“Dishes next,” she said and dumped the dirty water into a large bucket that she could empty out in the alley later. Before she pumped fresh water into the basin, she heard the back door open and close.
She turned around, expecting to see Cassie back, but instead, a barefoot Jane walked gingerly into the kitchen. Her apron and the hem on her work gown were covered with dirt, and most of the hair around her face had escaped from her braid. With her smudged cheeks flushed red, the poor woman looked as if she were about to faint.
“Martha! What are you doing up already?”
Martha ignored the woman’s question, hurried to her side, and urged her into one of the chairs at the kitchen table. “Sit right here until I get you some water. What on earth happened to you?”
Jane let out a long sigh. “Nothing that couldn’t have been prevented, I’m afraid,” she replied before accepting a glass of water and downing it straightaway. “Other than suffering from a couple of blisters from wearing boots that are a tad too big and forgetting to wear a bonnet, I’m just feeling overheated. I really didn’t expect to be gone or out in the sun this long.”
Martha frowned, refilled the glass with water, and handed her a damp cloth, which the woman immediately pressed to her flushed forehead. “Gone where?” Martha asked once she had both of Jane’s feet resting in a footbath.
“I know how hard you’ve been working, and I wanted to do something to help. Every time I thought to ask for your permission, you’d been called away again,” she replied cryptically.
Martha knew at once where Jane had gone to end up covered with so much grime, and she sat down beside her. “You shouldn’t have been working at Mrs. Reed’s. It’s been my obligation to replant the garden that Bella destroyed, not yours,” she argued. One of the chores she had planned for the day was to finally start meeting that obligation.
In all truth, she was still surprised that Mrs. Reed had given her permission to use a patch of ground where she could grow the herbs and plants she needed for her simples, as long as she also shared some of that bounty with her.
Jane let out a long sigh and smiled. “You’ve been so busy lately, it just didn’t look like you were going to have any time soon to get to the task yourself, and Mrs. Reed was getting impatient waiting for you. I knew it wouldn’t take much time to replant her garden, which I managed to finish the other day, but I thought that if I could get your garden planted, too, then all you’d have to do would be to keep it weeded. You’ll probably need to add more, but at least you’ve got a start,” she added. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a dirt-stained paper she handed to Martha. “This is what I planted for you today.”
Dumbstruck, Martha only had the wherewithal to scan the list of plantings and be amazed. Martha could not have chosen a better selection if she tried, and there were only a few she needed to add. “You chose all these plants yourself?”
“Not entirely,” Jane admitted. “Fern and Ivy recommended a few. Your daughter was here the day I was making up the list of what I thought to plant, but she said she didn’t really know much about the plants or the remedies you made from them.”
Martha pursed her lips. “No, she wouldn’t. She’s never had the slightest interest in anything I do as a midwife, I’m afraid. Her talents lie elsewhere with pen and paper, not a bag of simples or a birthing stool. I’ve only recently been able to fully accept that and to look for a woman to replace me.”
Still curious to know where Jane had learned so much about plants, she realized she knew very little about the woman’s background, other than the fact she had lived in Philadelphia and worked in a number of well-to-do households before taking care of Mr. Pennington. Jane had not shared much more than that. Since Jane deserved to be judged by what she did now as a member of their household and not her past, whatever that might be, Martha posed a question to her that only concerned the present.
“In all truth, Jane, beyond helping a woman to safely deliver her babe, one of the biggest responsibilities any midwife has is to have a full knowledge of herbs and plants and how to make remedies from them so she can help the women and children who depend on her, whether they’re ill or teeming with a babe. Since you clearly have knowledge of remedies and how to use them, I wonder if you might consider learning the rest of a midwife’s duties. It would probably take a good year or more, but I’d be honored to teach you, and I have no doubt that Fern and Ivy would allow you to stay here with Cassie, just as they did for me and my daughter,” she suggested, convinced it would be a true answer to prayer if Jane agreed.
When Jane abruptly broke her gaze and started brushing more dirt from her hands, Martha noticed the woman was trembling. “Whatever woman you choose will be fortunate to be a midwife here in Trinity, but that won’t be me. I . . . have absolutely no interest in ever being a midwife,” she said in a shaky voice.
Concerned that she had upset the woman, she remembered sharing the story of almost losing Henny Goodman before Dr. McMillan intervened and wondered if that might be one reason why Jane was not interested. She accepted her answer and turned their conversation back to the work Jane had done in their garden. “Then just let me say that the work you did in the garden for me is an absolute blessing. You’re an amazingly kind woman. Almost to the point of self-destruction,” she teased. “Thank you.”
When Jane finally looked up, Martha noted unshed tears glistening in her eyes. “You’re welcome.”
“I do have a promise I’d like to hold you to, though,” Martha cautioned. When Jane raised a brow, Martha started to nod. “The next time you decide to wear those boots of yours, wear an extra pair of socks so you don’t get blisters again. And don’t go out again without your bonnet.”
Jane laughed. “That’s a promise!”
“Good!” Martha pronounced and got to her feet. “As for those blisters of yours, I’ve got just the cure upstairs in my bag. Don’t move. I’ll be right back,” she ordered and hurried upstairs to get an ointment she had made from marigolds. Troubled by Jane’s reaction to the offer she’d made to her, Martha had the sense that there was something in her past that had made the woman tremble and be on the verge of tears. Jane, however, had no obligation to explain why the thought of becoming a midwife distressed her.
Martha hurried back to the kitche
n, and when she did, the room was abuzz, with most everyone in the household gabbing together like a gaggle of geese. She slipped the ointment into Jane’s hands without anyone else taking notice. Fern and Ivy were making a fuss over Jane’s poor blistered feet while Cassie and Fancy were laughing together as they unpacked the goods from the general store.
In the midst of all this, Fancy walked over to Martha and quietly slipped yet another blessing for this day into her hand: a letter from Thomas.
19
Martha was elated to have gotten a letter from Thomas, but with so many people now living in the household, privacy was truly a precious commodity.
Anxious to read his letter alone before sharing any news with the others, she left the confectionery ten minutes later. With Bird tucked safely in his basket and her letter stored in her reticule, she started off to the clearing above the falls, where she would have the privacy she craved.
Main Street was the usual beehive of activity, with wagon traffic clogging the roadway and pedestrians shopping along the planked sidewalk, sandwiched in between the noisy canal workers at one end of town and mill workers at the other. She started across the covered bridge to reach the path that would wind through the woods and end up at the clearing, but she paused just inside the far end of the covered bridge to take a good look up and down East Main Street. With no sight of anyone walking about to her left, she looked right and found no sign of anyone seeking treatment at Dr. McMillan’s home, either.
Too excited to wait any longer to read her letter, she decided that right there, within the shelter of the covered bridge, would be private enough.
She set the basket down on the ground and took a step beyond it so she could be as close to the light as possible while keeping the basket in the shade. Her hands were shaking as she broke the seal and unfolded the single piece of paper, and her heart raced a little bit faster as she read his short but tender message dated a week ago:
My dearest Martha,
Although I’m desperate to return to you, my beloved, I must remain in Clarion for another week and possibly longer. I pray you’re finding more success in your search for someone to assume your duties as a midwife than I am having here trying to convince Micah’s father to end their estrangement. I delivered your letter to Mrs. Benson and had a rather lengthy visit with her. Instead of writing back to you, she asked me to reassure you that, while she had no one she could recommend as a new midwife, she would keep your request in mind.
I miss you more and more each day. Once we’re together again, I intend to shower you with kisses until you agree we should marry and travel to New York together.
Ever faithful,
Thomas
Disappointed by Naomi’s response, she shook her head. Persistent man. Only mildly annoyed that he was still trying to get her to go to New York with him as his wife, she intended to remind him when he returned that he needed to be a little more patient. Thankfully, she would not have to wait long to do so.
In the meantime, before she attempted to walk to the falls she needed to have better control of her heart, which had started racing the moment she began to read his letter and had not stopped. Just the thought of the kisses he promised her made her vow to double her efforts to find a new midwife for Trinity.
“This is a rather odd place to be reading your correspondence.”
Startled, Martha slapped the letter to her chest before she tipped her chin up to find Thomas standing only a few feet away, directly in front of her, holding the reins to his horse in one hand and his hat in the other. “Mercy, you frightened me half to death!”
“I’m sorry. I thought you’d heard me coming toward you and were ignoring me.”
She huffed. “I wasn’t ignoring you. I didn’t even hear you approaching. And for that matter, I didn’t even know you were back from Clarion.”
“I came back late last night, but it was too late to let you know,” he offered. When he leaned forward to get a peek at the letter she still had pressed against her chest, she hastily folded it up and shoved it into her reticule. He chuckled. “If that’s my letter, then that accounts for it.”
She tilted up her chin. “Accounts for what?”
His gaze smoldered. “With your absolute inability to be aware of anything other than how much affection you have for me when you’re reading my words, which happens to be exactly how I feel about you when I’m penning them to you.”
When he took a step closer, as if he were ready to shower her with those kisses he had promised, she put up her hand. “In all truth, I was more troubled by your lack of patience. Persistence isn’t always an admirable quality, either, particularly when it comes to repeatedly asking a woman to change her mind about when she would marry you, when you’ve already accepted her answer.”
“And I might argue that a man who loves a woman as much as I love you is apt to do most anything to change her mind, although one of your kisses might convince me I should apologize.”
When he took yet another step closer, she took two steps back, tripped over Bird’s basket, and cried out as her skirts twisted about her legs. With her arms flailing and the bird squawking and attempting to get out of the basket, she fought to stay on her feet.
She would have ended up falling if Thomas had not dropped the reins he had been holding and caught her by both arms. The next thing she knew, his horse charged past them, and Thomas went running after it. She watched in horrified fascination until they both turned north toward the confectionery, with any further view blocked by a pair of farm wagons headed down the street and the side of the covered bridge.
“What a disaster,” she grumbled. She righted the basket and lifted the lid to check on Bird. He was shaking in a corner. “Poor little thing. You’re so scared, I haven’t a feather of a hope that I’ll get you to fly very much today.”
Carrying the basket close to her with both hands, she hurried off to find Thomas, only to find him tethering his mount to the post on the sidewalk right in front of the confectionery.
“I’m sorry to have caused such a ruckus, but at least you found your horse before it got too far,” she said.
He gave her a hard look. “I wouldn’t have had to go charging after my horse if you hadn’t been carrying that confounded bird of yours about town. I thought you’d set it free by now.”
Martha stiffened her back. “It’s not like I haven’t tried. His wing is healed and he can fly pretty well now, but I don’t think he’s strong enough to fly off and fend for himself in the wild quite yet.”
“It’s a bird, Martha. Try as I might, I simply can’t comprehend why you still have that creature. If you’ll just set it free, it’ll manage to survive because that’s what birds do. They fly. They eat. They survive. And they’ll peck at your flesh and draw blood if you get in their way,” he snapped, clearly vexed and still troubled by his childhood encounter with some jays that had left him with a few scars on his scalp and an aversion to birds of any kind.
“I’m sorry. If I had expected to meet you or anyone else on the street, I wouldn’t have had Bird with me. In point of fact, I was actually on my way up to the clearing above the falls with him to see if he’s really strong enough to fly away,” she explained, grateful that her apology had eased his frown, although not quite into a smile. “Were you on your way out of town when you found me?” she asked, curious to know if he had intended to stop to tell her he was home before he left again.
“I’m not quite certain where I was headed,” he offered and paused for a moment before he continued. “You may as well know. Apparently Bella ran off again the day before yesterday. Since I couldn’t find her when I walked around town this morning, I was heading out to see if I could locate her somewhere beyond Trinity before she caused any more trouble. But as it turns out, I don’t have to bother now. I know exactly where she is,” he said with a twinkle in his eyes.
He took the basket out of her arms and set it on the planked sidewalk. Taking hold of her hand, he marched
her straight to the entrance of the alley.
To her surprise, she saw Bella standing at the back door to the confectionery where she was licking at one of the half-dozen pans that customers had returned there. “Bella may not particularly like you, but she’s smart enough to remember where to find the sweets she apparently craves as much as you do,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Wait here and stay very still while I walk down to get her. She won’t be likely to bolt as long as she doesn’t hear you and you aren’t anywhere near her.”
Unfortunately, when he was only a few feet away from the horse, Ivy opened the back door, yelped when she saw the horse there, and slammed the door. Just as startled, Bella reared her head and knocked all of the pans off the step. When they clattered every which way, Bella charged down the alley, headed straight for them.
Thomas raced back and pulled Martha into his arms and out of harm’s way barely in time to avoid the petrified horse, which had kept running and finally disappeared. Pressed between the side of the building and Thomas’s chest, Martha could feel her heart pounding against his and held on tight.
Breathing hard to catch his breath, he made no attempt to let her go. Instead, he bent down to whisper in her ear, “If keeping that horse around gives me the opportunity now and again to hold you this close, I may just let you give that mare to me like you offered to do, remember?”
“I remember no such thing,” she countered and wriggled out of his embrace.
“I’ve got a sweet little mare in my stable that you can ride if you’d care to come with me now and help me to look for Bella.”
“I can’t. I should pick up all those pans and finish the work I have to do in the confectionery,” she replied.
“Then promise I can see you later today or tonight, perhaps. I’ve got those remedies you asked me to get for you in Clarion and matters we still need to discuss. What time would suit you best?”
