Remembrance

by Spaeth, Janet

  She could feel the flush that crept up her neck. “Well, yes. That way I can enjoy it longer.”

  “But this way—” He took a bite from his with a great crunch. “This way, you get the full effects of the mint. And you get to chew it. That, my dear girl, is the way to eat a peppermint stick.”

  Eliza cleared her throat. “I shall certainly keep that in mind.” Gratefully she seized on the conversation happening behind her.

  Hyacinth and Analia were examining the opened packets from the store. Analia’s small fingers caressed the striped fabric. “Do you like it?” Hyacinth asked quietly. “It’s going to look so pretty with your dark hair and eyes.”

  “It looks like my peppermint stick.”

  “Oh, it does! It’s pink and white, isn’t it?” Hyacinth looked at Eliza and winked. “Let’s ask Miss Davis if she might do this first then.”

  Analia shook her head. “No.”

  Eliza knelt down. “No? Analia, why not? You’ll look like a princess in it.”

  “Make my mother’s gown first. Please.”

  Everything seemed to slow. Even the clock’s ticking lagged. Eliza blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. She wrapped Analia in her arms and held her closely against her. “Honey, I will. Your mother’s first, and then yours. You are such a sweet, thoughtful girl.”

  Something in her heart moved as if a piece that had been broken slid back into place.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” Hyacinth said, holding out her hand to Analia at last. “Let’s braid your hair, and then why don’t you and I go in and visit with your mother for a while? We’ll have some lady talk.”

  Eliza worked near the window, cutting and pinning the pale green fabric for Mary Robbins’s nightgown. She wished she’d been able to bring her sewing machine with her from St. Paul, but it was at the shop, and she had left it behind. Sewing went so much faster with the machine. She’d be able to have all the clothing made in a third of the time it would take her to hand-stitch it.

  As it was, all this sewing was going to take at least a month and a half. With a sewing machine, she could probably get it done in two weeks. Then she’d feel better taking some extra care with the hand finishing, making sure everything was exactly right.

  Still, speed came with a price. Here, she’d be around Silas. And, she had to admit as she bent over the green cloth, she was enjoying it. There was something about that solemn expression that could suddenly open with a smile that she looked forward to seeing every day.

  Remembrance was fitting her quite well. She might just stay.

  ❧

  “Yes, I went over there,” Silas said to his uncle for what seemed like the twentieth time in the last half hour. “Yes. I gave them the message. Yes, they said they’d come.”

  Uncle Edward struggled to his feet and limped over to the window. “You’re sure?”

  “Yes! And use your cane, please! I don’t want you falling and breaking your other precious limb.”

  “My what?” his uncle boomed.

  “Oh, never mind.” Silas knew he was snappish but was just cranky enough not to care. God must be challenging him all the time, he thought, to be more accepting of change because He certainly provided enough learning experiences.

  Even Professor Barkley seemed in on it. The day’s lesson was titled, “How to Take Control of the Future.” They’d already covered that earlier, with the “Expect the Unexpected” lesson. Today Professor Barkley advised that although one cannot control the future—it is, after all, written by God’s hand—one can prepare for what lies ahead.

  He mulled it over, just as he had the earlier lesson. Professor Barkley clearly didn’t consider them to be the same subjects, so what was Silas missing? Maybe if one could expect what they weren’t expecting, they could control what they couldn’t control?

  It made his head hurt.

  Everything in his life was beyond his control.

  From the time he chose to come to live with his uncle as a young lad, he had been like a leaf in a stream, sent whichever way the current sent him. He had two choices: printing or carpentry.

  The oddest part was that he found he possessed a true talent for carpentry. It was, as Uncle Edward was wont to remind him, a sacred profession, too, for the blessed Jesus had Himself been a carpenter.

  Then his uncle had delivered the biggest surprise: He was hoping to marry someone he’d never met, never even seen.

  The surprises just kept on. The broken ankle. The arrival of Hyacinth—and Eliza.Oh, Professor Barkley had let him down this time. Even he couldn’t have been prepared for any of this.

  “I see them!” Uncle Edward crowed, and he hobbled happily to the front door.

  Eliza and Hyacinth entered the house with a covered basket that emitted the heavenly aroma of cinnamon and brown sugar. Uncle Edward investigated the contents greedily. “Good! Cookies! I’ve got just the platter for them—” His sentence trailed off as he and Hyacinth left the room.

  “Did you make them?” Silas asked Eliza.

  “Do you really think that Mrs. Adams would let me in her kitchen?” Eliza began to unwind her scarf. “Ha!”

  He helped her out of her coat, breathing in her clean scent and trying to ignore the little curl that had escaped the thick bun and spiraled down her neck behind her ear, the wayward coil as brown as the cinnamon-dusted cookies she carried in.

  She turned back to him, automatically touching her hair to straighten it, and he almost sighed aloud when her fingers found the lock and pressed it back into the bun. “Honestly, sometimes I think you men are the lucky ones with the short hair. There are days when I would love to just chop this all off!”

  Before he could respond, Hyacinth rejoined them, carrying a tray with cups of tea and the cookies. “We’ll have them in here,” Uncle Edward said, who was right behind her, “and take advantage of the fireplace and the sunshine.”

  Silas removed the newspaper from the seat beside him and tossed it onto the small reading table. Eliza immediately picked it up. “I haven’t seen a newspaper since I came here!” she said. “Oh, it’s from Duluth.”

  “My darling Hyacinth and I are dreaming of making our nest there,” Uncle Edward said, beaming at his bride-to-be. “We’ll live in our cottage by the sea—”

  “Lake Superior is not a sea,” Silas interjected, not liking his petulant tone but unable to stop himself. “It’s a Great Lake. There are five of them. Lake Superior. Lake Huron. Lake Michigan. Lake Ontario. Lake Erie.”

  “Then we’ll live in our cottage by the Great Lake,” Uncle Edward said, obviously annoyed with his nephew. “Happy?”

  “I’m just pointing out to you that Duluth isn’t on a sea. That’s all. It’s on Lake Superior.” Silas scowled.

  “Wait!” Eliza waved her hands in front of her. “Stop! I don’t care if Duluth is on the edge of the Arctic Ocean or the Nile River. What does it matter?”

  “Indeed.” Uncle Edward picked up the newspaper. “I’ve been having this sent to me. It’s a dandy paper, too. Not only does it keep me up on what’s happening there, it’s got news from the rest of the state. Here’s a bit about the St. Paul Ice Carnival. Now there’s some spectacular thinking going on in the capital.”

  Hyacinth read over his shoulder. “What an interesting idea! There are all sorts of things planned, even a palace made entirely of ice! Eliza, have you heard of this?”

  Eliza nodded. “The minister of the church I went to in St. Paul, Reverend Everett, told me about it. They’re quite excited about it. His daughter, Christal, was a friend of mine, and she was very interested in it. I’ll have to have her tell me all about it, the next time I see her.”

  “And here’s another story of interest,” Edward said, reading further. “Down in Mankato, along the Minnesota River, they’re building a new courthouse.”

  Silas yawned. “All very interesting, Uncle.”

  “Not wild enough for you?” his uncle asked with a sharp glare at Silas. “Then maybe you�
��ll like this story. Some sly trickster in St. Paul has been discovered taking advantage of the maidenly workforce there. Apparently he coaxes them into believing he’s in love with them by filling their minds with pledges of a secure monetary future while—”

  Eliza gasped, and her hand moved quickly to her throat. “No!”

  Silas leaped up and went to her, kneeling in front of her. “Eliza, are you feeling unwell?”

  All the color drained from her face, and her breathing was shallow. He put his fingers over her wrist and frowned.

  “Your pulse is racing. Eliza! Are you all right?” he asked again, this time a bit louder.

  “I’m fine,” she said, fluttering her hand in front of her face. “I feel like such a goose for alarming you. I couldn’t help but think that I used to live in St. Paul, and it was probably only His mercies that I escaped this beast. What was his name again, Edward?”

  “Let me see.” Uncle Edward scanned the article. “Oh, yes, here it is. The scoundrel’s name is Loring. Blaine Loring.”

  Six

  Eliza forced herself to breathe normally. She was here, safe, in Remembrance. There was nothing to tie her to this monster anymore. She thought he was merely a two-timing Lothario—and that had cut deeply, right into her heart—and now she was learning he was also a criminal. She was lucky to have gotten away from him before he dragged her into his sordid activities.

  Her mind busily tried to sort the new information out, even as those around her continued to speak, their voices muted as the pounding in her head grew. What she had done—that was legitimate. It had to be.

  “The story becomes more interesting,” Uncle Edward said. “Listen to this: ‘Loring is assumed to have taken financial as well as romantic liberties with the young women by conniving them into investing in a complicated scheme in which only he benefits. Apparently the young women, who are maids and seamstresses and nannies, were encouraged by Loring’s empty words to take part in his malevolent plan, turning their savings over to him. How Loring was able to exact the exchange of money for promises, and at such magnitude, has not been discovered, but an investigation is underway, and authorities have vowed that all parties will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.’ ”

  “Oh, Eliza, I am so glad you didn’t get mixed up with this nasty fellow,” Hyacinth said as she stirred sugar into her tea. “He sounds like just the kind of person who could easily ruin your life.”

  Eliza’s heart pounded so loudly she thought that certainly they all could hear it. The kind of person who could easily ruin her life? Indeed.

  “Not our Eliza!” Uncle Edward scoffed. “Why, she’s too intelligent to get sucked into one of those setups. And that’s just what it is. A setup. Some man with absolutely no moral backbone wastes all of the brains God gave him by trying to figure how to get rich without putting forth any effort, when in reality, it’s probably more work that way than it would be if he’d just gone out and gotten a job, like the rest of the world.”

  “Now, dearest Edward, calm down. That Loring man is an animal, and I’m glad that his fiendish design is coming down around his head. Have another cookie.”

  Have another cookie. If only it could be that easy. Eliza wanted to put her hands over her ears and stop the rushing sound that kept echoing in her head.

  This was far worse than finding the man she loved in the arms of another woman. Far worse than finding out that he hadn’t cared at all for her.

  How could she not have seen it? She let herself get so caught up in his web of false flattery that she hadn’t seen the truth, even when it was right in front of her.

  She was a lowly seamstress; he was a wealthy investor. She had been so blinded by his attention to her that she’d never wondered what such an apparently rich and influential man would see in her.

  All the signs were there from the beginning.

  He sought her out. His gifts were not from his heart but from his plan—to get her so overcome with the glitter that she wouldn’t see the tarnish.

  She’d walked right into his treachery. He had an investment opportunity, he told her, that he wanted to open to the young women in service to the wealthy. It was a way for them to improve their lots in life—the same way, he so winningly pointed out—that the rich got richer, through investment.

  He’d sounded as if he thought only of these poor girls, and his false altruism made him even more appealing to her.

  So she very helpfully went out and encouraged these same women to give him their money.

  How could she have been so stupid?

  She had been his accomplice in this horrible plot. Now she knew why he had been so interested in her. She’d been so blind, so willing to believe his oily lies that she fell right into his trap.

  “We’re so lucky to be in Remembrance, away from people like that,” Hyacinth said, shuddering. “Can you imagine how those poor women feel?”

  Edward nodded. “There are some men who feel that innocence is a challenge.”

  “Absolutely,” Hyacinth agreed, “and too often we assume that innocence is a physical matter, when in fact true innocence lives in the soul, far beyond the reach of such men.”

  Silas dismissed the entire conversation. “Certainly we can discuss something other than this beast in St. Paul. He isn’t worthy of our words.”

  Eliza swallowed hard and stared out the window. Snow had started to fall again, a very pretty snow for the onset of evening. Oversized white fluffs that drifted slowly were silhouetted against the deep twilight-blue sky, undisturbed by even the faintest touch of wind.

  The snow would quickly cover the disturbed and uneven patches where boys had had snowball fights, or the mud-colored ruts in the road that would be reformed into treacherous muck in the spring melt. All they’d see tomorrow would be smooth unbroken snow, clean and fresh.

  “Eliza?”

  She realized that the others were watching her expectantly, waiting for an answer to a question she hadn’t heard. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ve caught me daydreaming.” She managed a light laugh that didn’t sound to her as if it would fool anyone.

  “I mentioned the house by the mercantile,” Hyacinth said, “and I said we’d stopped by and nothing seemed to have been touched in it.”

  “It seemed quite abandoned.” Eliza seized on the chance to discuss a different subject. “The only footsteps in the snow were ours, so clearly no one else had been by recently.”

  Edward buried his face in the newspaper again. “Here’s more news of interest. Apparently the precipitation in Duluth last month—”

  Silas, Eliza realized, was no longer slouched in the chair. He was sitting up, staring at his uncle sharply.

  “The house by the mercantile?” Silas repeated. “What house? Not the old Lindstrom house!”

  “Well,” his uncle replied, only half-lowering the paper, “it’s a good sturdy house.”

  “Would you like to fill me in on this, Uncle?”

  “It’s a good, solid house.”

  “So is this one.”

  “It’s an investment.”

  Eliza trembled at the term. If she never heard of investments again, it would be fine with her.

  “Are you telling me,” Silas continued in the same low voice, “that you’re thinking of buying it?”

  The newspaper went back up.

  “Uncle Edward, what aren’t you telling me?”

  The silence from behind the newspaper seemed to grow.

  Silas sat back and sighed. “You already bought it. That’s just foolish. You bought it just so Hyacinth would have a place to stay?” He paused. “Or for me to stay? Is that it?”

  “Not exactly.” Edward folded the paper neatly, obviously stalling for time. Then he looked at his nephew. “I’ve owned it for a while. I keep meaning to get over there and work on it but—” He motioned toward his ankle. “It seems like it’s always been one thing or another.”

  “Why on earth, though?”

  “The Lindst
roms, you know, left, and their daughter and her husband moved in, but he got that job in Chicago, and they moved, and an older man moved in, but he got so he couldn’t walk and his grandchildren came and got him, and then that kind young man stayed until—”

  “I know all this. What I don’t know is why you now own it.”

  “Because that young fellow was in love with a woman living in Rochester, and he couldn’t bear to be apart from her, and he wanted to go to be with her, and I bought the house so he’d have the money to go up to Rochester and be with her. There. That’s it. I’m a romantic old sap.”

  “I see. Well.”

  “And it worked out perfectly, because all we have to do is fix it up a bit, and it’ll be just right for what we need now.”

  “What kind of shape is it in?” Silas asked. “Nobody’s lived in it since, when, late October? November? It’ll need some work.”

  “I don’t rightly know,” Edward said. “I meant to go over there but then I got busy and one thing led to another and then next thing I knew I was flying off the ladder and cracking the bone in my ankle here. I guess I got excited about Petunia Blossom coming out to Remembrance and just kind of forgot.”

  Petunia Blossom. Now there was a new one. Even in her distress, it made Eliza smile.

  “Before you plan further,” Silas interjected, “let me go over and take a look at it. The house may not be sound anymore.”

  “Good idea,” Edward said. “You’re right. A house is an investment, and we need to keep that in mind. It’s quite unfortunate that those poor young women in St. Paul hadn’t done that before giving that reprobate their money. If they’d been a bit wiser, they wouldn’t be in the situation they are today. Makes me wonder, though, if there wasn’t some kind of an insider involved, someone who’d be able to convince these women that their money was safe.”

  It was too much for her.

  “Excuse me,” she said, standing rather quickly. “I don’t feel at all well, and I think I’d better go back to the boardinghouse. Please excuse me.”