“I’m glad to hear you’re recovering.” He stepped in the room.
Too close. She put up a hand to stop him. “I’m sorry, but without a chaperone...”
“Of course.” He backed away. “I will call for Mrs. Calloway or Amanda.”
“Don’t bother them.” Though her voice came out petulant, she couldn’t regret it. After all, he had caused this.
An awkward silence followed. She pulled the quilt higher though she wasn’t cold. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “I’m glad the cough has left. Is the pain better?”
She hated to admit that it was. “Somewhat, but Dr. Van Neef said it will take some time before I’m back to normal.”
“Naturally.” He looked around the room. “You must find such a small space confining.”
“You can’t imagine.” She pressed a hand to her mouth. The last thing she needed was to agree with anything he said.
His lips curved slightly. “Might I at least give you this gift?”
“Why would you think it necessary to give me anything?”
He set down the package on the bureau and retreated. “It’s from all of us, but especially Sadie.”
“Oh.” Now she felt terrible.
“The red ribbon was her idea. She said you look pretty in red.” He grinned, and that irresistible sparkle returned to his eyes. “I happen to agree.”
Pearl had to duck her head to hide the heat rising in her cheeks. How was she supposed to stay angry with him when he said things like that? “She is well, then? And Cocoa?”
“Both in excellent health. Sadie is showing no ill effects from the incident other than asking a great many questions.”
“Questions about what?” Pearl picked at the sad fringe on her shawl.
“Ah, that is for her uncle to know.”
“And me to find out?” Pearl challenged. Something about the man brought out the fighting spirit in her.
He laughed. “That’s the Pearl I love.”
Love? That word made her stiffen. Could those feelings she had for him truly be love? Could the fact that he displaced everything else in her mind indicate the sort of affection that would last a lifetime? Or was this one of those passing fancies that led to heartbreak? After all, he could not be trusted to take care of the innocent and vulnerable. Why should she trust him with her heart?
She turned her face away from the door. “I’m tired. Please let me rest.”
He hesitated, probably waiting for her to relent. She could not. To give in would be to accept and condone such carelessness. No, she’d made up her mind. Her life would be dedicated to her students. There was no room in it for a man who’d proven faithless.
Even though he had come back for her.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Pearl greeted the news that the church had reopened with some satisfaction. Amanda reported the building full for the first service.
“You should have heard Roland sing.” She sighed. “Such a beautiful tenor.”
Pearl didn’t want to hear one word about Roland, but Amanda peppered her with references from sunup to sundown and then some. Even her report that the school would reopen included Roland.
“He arranged for us to use the church. Isn’t that perfect?”
“It’s the only logical choice.” Pearl shifted in the rocking chair Mr. Calloway had dragged upstairs two days ago.
Though the former cabin was the perfect place for a school, she could not see what part Roland needed to play in this. It wasn’t as if he owned the building. The still-absent Mr. Stockton did. With a lull in sawmill operations he had no need of the extra space. Only one question remained. Had she been fired?
“Who will teach the classes?” Pearl held her breath.
Amanda beamed. “Louise and Fiona and I are taking turns. Roland ordered brand-new primers and slates.”
“He did? How could he afford that?”
Considering how much of a fuss he put up when she first arrived, this turnaround made no sense. The materials for his glassworks must have burned up. He should have less spending money, not more.
Amanda shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
Naturally. Amanda had never needed to understand the cost of daily living. The Chatsworths had paid for the necessities. Amanda would only know the sting of not having luxuries. Pearl swallowed the bitter realization that want would follow her all her days.
“Aren’t you going to open the present?” Amanda repeated the question every day.
Pearl gave the same response. “I can’t.”
Amanda, ever the romantic, clucked her tongue as she riffled through the stack of letters beside the package. “You didn’t even read his notes.”
Pearl had read Roland’s notes, but she would not tell her friend that, even to stop the questioning. His fine script had drawn her. Few men wrote so meticulously, and she’d expected the content to match. Surely he would apologize or at least explain why he’d pushed forward with setting the burn pile ablaze on such a day. None of the notes even mentioned what had happened. They brimmed with family details, like Sadie’s ability to care for Cocoa or how Isaac was helping out at the store.
Not one word of apology. Not one word about how he felt.
The letters might have been written to a mother or a sister or even a friend. That’s what annoyed her more than anything. Had the kiss been a dream?
Amanda ran her hand over the package. The paper crackled. “Sadie asks every day if you like it. I tell her you haven’t felt well enough, but that’s no longer true, is it?”
Amanda had a way of pricking Pearl’s conscience. How could she explain? “Whatever it is, it will be too dear.”
Naturally that explanation did nothing to stifle Amanda’s curiosity. “It feels like cloth. Maybe it’s a blanket.”
“A blanket? Why would they give me a blanket?”
Amanda shrugged. “Sadie might think you need one.”
“It’s not from Sadie, even if it does say that on the outside.”
“You did look!” Amanda ventured.
“Only at the outside. My point is that no matter what’s written on the gift, it’s really from Roland.”
“Now you’re being ridiculous,” Amanda said. “You refuse to open it just because you think Roland bought it?”
That did sound childish, but Pearl couldn’t give in. “Sadie could not possibly afford to buy me anything.”
“Who said anything about buying? Perhaps Sadie is giving you something of hers.”
Pearl’s breath caught in her throat. What if Amanda was right? What if Sadie was giving her a prized quilt or blanket?
“She wants you to get well,” Amanda added.
Pearl relented. “All right.” She pushed to her feet, and the shawl dropped from her shoulders. Pearl shivered as the cool draft from the window hit her. “A blanket might be welcome.”
“Sit. Sit.” Amanda leaped to her feet. “You’re only to move when necessary.”
“I will go mad if I can’t do something.”
“You can open this.” Amanda lifted the bulky package from the bureau and laid it on Pearl’s lap. “It’s the right weight for a blanket.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Pearl fingered the ribbon. Red. Chosen by Sadie because she thought red looked good on her. Her throat constricted.
Amanda perched on the edge of the bed, hands clasped with excitement. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
Pearl untied the ribbon and ran her hand over the names written on the paper with a thick pencil. To Teacher from Sadie. She’d seen enough of Roland’s writing to recognize his precise script.
“Hurry,” Amanda urged.
Pearl folded back the paper to reveal s
tunning green silk cloth. This was definitely not a blanket. The scoop of a neckline and dainty buttons covered in the same green fabric left no doubt. “It’s a dress.”
“Oh, how beautiful.” Amanda ran a hand over the silk. “It will look so pretty on you, and you need a new dress after your everyday gown was ruined.”
“I can’t accept it. Just as I suspected, it’s much too dear.”
“Only because you think Roland bought it.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? If you learned Garrett purchased it would you feel the same?” Amanda didn’t wait long for Pearl to respond. “Just what I thought. Why should it matter? Why have you put up such a wall against Roland when he’s the one who rescued you from the fire?”
“Because he’s the one who started that fire.”
Amanda gasped. “You can’t mean that.”
“He told me he was going to burn the branches that Monday. He should have known better.”
Amanda’s eyes filled with tears. “So you’re going to hold it against him? For how long?”
Pearl couldn’t answer. She didn’t know.
“You told me to forgive Hugh. You told me the only way I could move on was to forgive him.”
“This isn’t the same,” Pearl muttered, though deep down she knew that it was.
Amanda stood, her color high. “Yes, it is. It’s exactly the same. You said that holding a grudge allows the other person to have control of you. I believed you. I trusted your judgment. Now you won’t even follow your own advice?”
The truth behind the words drove them deep. They stung. They hurt. They convicted. Yet she could not take the step that Amanda demanded. She tossed the dress onto the bed, and a slip of paper floated out.
Amanda picked it up, and her eyes filled with tears again. She pressed a hand to her mouth and held out the paper.
Pearl trembled at what might be written on it, but when she took the paper, she saw only Sadie’s name, spelled perfectly with the D facing the correct direction, and another drawing. This one was similar to the other one except that flames spewed out of the tugboat’s smokestack and rained down on a woman and a little girl.
Her heart stopped. The last picture had shown soot coming from the tug’s stack. This one showed flames. Was Sadie trying to tell her something? Sadie did sit near the window that faced the river. Cocoa had gone missing by then. What if she was looking outside to see if Clem had taken Cocoa with him? What if she had seen what happened?
Pearl gasped, her hand to her mouth. She had leaped to the wrong conclusion. She had misjudged Roland, had blamed him when he was blameless, had thrown away his demonstrations of affection. He had reached out to her at the very time his dream burned to the ground, and she’d turned him away.
What a cruel and selfish woman. While claiming defense of the children, she’d really been building a wall around her heart. A wall of prideful self-reliance.
O Lord, what have I done?
The sobs wrung out of her with the same fierceness as the day her parents abandoned her.
* * *
Roland tried to drown out the sting of Pearl’s rejection by singing the hymns with all his strength. Eight days had passed since he left the gift in her room. He’d heard nothing and received no word. Little Sadie had grown quieter each day. That hurt most. If Pearl needed to shun him, he could accept it, but not that precious little girl. Sadie had been through so much, and Pearl knew it. Why punish an innocent child? This silence of Pearl’s made no sense.
Lord, give me patience. I know I’m supposed to forgive and wait, but can’t You send someone for Sadie? She needs a mother’s love.
That was the problem. Pearl wasn’t Sadie’s mother. No one would be, if Garrett meant what he said. Last Sunday, Roland’s brother had greeted Amanda cordially but didn’t invite her to sit with them in church. This Sunday she didn’t arrive at all.
The hymn ended, and he glanced out the window. Snow raced along the surface of the dunes like windblown sand. It wasn’t snowing hard enough to accumulate, but it was cold. Maybe Amanda didn’t feel well enough to go out of doors. Though he hoped to see Pearl, she wouldn’t be ready to leave the boardinghouse yet. She certainly wouldn’t go outside.
He turned his attention back to the visiting pastor.
“Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger,” the man said. “Sound advice but difficult to follow.”
That was true. Roland had spent his life speaking first and thinking later. Listening? He’d fallen far short of that ideal. Could that be what had upset Pearl? He’d never truly listened to her, even when she gave up a priceless nugget of information. An interested man would have leaped on her revelation of losing her parents to comfort her and ask where she had lived next. He’d related his own losses, which was neither helpful nor compassionate.
How he’d failed.
No wonder she’d turned from him.
If only he could have another chance. The apostle Peter got a second chance. The criminal crucified at Christ’s side got a chance at paradise. Could he?
The door opened with a rush of cold air.
The pastor looked to the back of the room and smiled. Like everyone else, Roland turned. There stood Amanda. And Pearl, wrapped from head to toe in the green cloak and leaning on her friend’s arm.
He’d gotten his second chance, and he wasn’t going to ruin it. He rose, but Amanda shook her head. He sat back down, disappointed, but then he saw the one thing that could make his heart soar.
Pearl smiled.
* * *
Pearl had not expected such a wave of emotion at the sight of Roland. It nearly sent her knees out from under her.
“Let’s sit here,” Amanda whispered.
Fiona moved over and Pearl gratefully sank to the bench. The walk to church had been exhausting. She needed to rest before the return. Still, her eyes could not help wandering to Roland. The men sat at each end of the bench with the children protectively between them. Like sentinels. The way it ought to be.
Pearl’s throat tightened. Roland had always put his niece and nephew first. If she’d listened, truly listened, as the pastor was even now explaining in his sermon, she would have seen his love for them in every word and action. She would never have doubted him.
Today’s conversation would be difficult, but it must be done. In spite of her lowly beginnings, Pearl had always held her head high, shielding her heart with a wall of pride. She did not outright lie about her past; she hid it. That, too, was deception. Roland deserved to know the truth. All of it. Only then could the air be cleared between them.
Still, when the closing hymn ended and the congregation began to filter outside, she could not will herself to move.
“Do you need help?” Amanda whispered in her ear.
Pearl looked, truly looked, at her friend, and for the first time heard the unspoken hope in her words. She clasped Amanda’s hand. “Go to them.”
Amanda’s reply shone in her eyes and reflected in her beaming smile. “I’ll be back.”
“That’s quite all right,” boomed the very voice that sent a shiver through Pearl’s spine. Roland winked at Amanda. “I can escort Miss Pearl back to the boardinghouse.”
That was all the permission Amanda needed to hurry forward to greet Sadie and Isaac. Their father, on the other hand, had to face Fiona.
“He has his hands full,” Roland chuckled.
“I’m afraid so.”
He rounded the bench to sit beside her, but this was not a conversation she wanted to have in public. “Would you walk with me toward the dune?”
He glanced down at her legs. “Are you able?”
“With assistance.” She managed a wry smile. “That’s something God is teaching me, reliance on others. It seems I wasn’t as str
ong and independent as I thought.”
He helped her to her feet. “You’re the strongest woman I’ve ever known.”
She shook her head. “The most foolish and stubborn perhaps.”
“You’ll have some stiff competition in that category, I’m afraid.”
They walked from the church and exited into the wind. It blew her cloak open, revealing the lovely silk gown.
“It fits!” His blue eyes darkened. “Sadie will be pleased.”
“Miss Sadie must have a substantial allowance.”
His laughter rolled out again and she’d forgotten how much she loved the sound of it. “Now that’s the Pearl I love.”
This time those words struck a harmonious chord inside her. If only...but once he learned the truth about her, once he heard her confession, that melody would fall into discord.
“I must speak with you. There is so much to confess.”
He took her hand and led her away from the church, taking care to match his normally long strides to her painfully halting steps. “The confession is all mine. I was so selfish.”
“No. Never. I was the selfish one.”
“Listen, Pearl. I thought you ungrateful when your note was merely mislaid.”
“But I was ungrateful. You sent this fine gown when you could not afford it, and I pushed you away. The least I could have done...oh, I’m so ashamed of how I behaved.”
He stopped her and tilted up her chin. “Look at me, Pearl.”
She did.
“You were hurt, wounded. You needed to protect yourself.”
She shook her head. “The only thing I was trying to protect was my heart.”
“As was I.” His voice deepened. “You see, I once loved Eva. Sadie and Isaac’s mother. I was angry that she married Garrett instead of me. I threatened to tell Garrett everything about our time together before she left me to marry him. She begged me not to. I didn’t listen, just like I didn’t listen to your concerns about the schoolchildren.”
Mail Order Mix-Up Page 24
