Love's First Bloom

by Delia Parr

  “Nonsense. Lily looks like she’s waking up. Take her to play with the other children. Talk to some of the other young mothers,” Phanaby insisted and hurried off.

  Left to her own devices, Ruth was half tempted to slip away unnoticed and take Lily home, but she knew that Phanaby would be disappointed in her. She scanned the grounds between the meetinghouse and the picnic area and quickly made up her mind. Rather than walk along the path that led through the cemetery to reach the crowd of people gathered on the other side, she decided to take the longer route by walking the perimeter of the property along Lawrence Street, which was bordered by shade trees just beginning to wear a new season of foliage.

  She had only taken a few steps before she stopped so abruptly, she had to put her hand to Lily’s back to keep the child from pitching forward. She turned and stared at the two men standing in the alley across the street, arguing with each other, and realized she recognized them. Although they were well out of sight of the rest of the gathering across the way, she had a clear view of the men from this vantage point.

  She had only met Robert Farrell once yesterday, but his face and form had been indelibly imprinted in her mind’s eye, if only for self-preservation. She had spent much more time with Jake Spencer, but she had never seen him as agitated as he was now. She watched in fearful fascination as Jake jabbed his finger into the other man’s chest. She could not hear what he was saying, but she did not miss the angry set to his features or the arrogant grin on Farrell’s face when he shoved Jake’s hand away.

  As they continued to interact, their anger eventually dissipated, much to her relief. As they talked together more calmly now, she had the distinct impression they actually knew each other.

  They know each other.

  Her blood froze, and she urged Lily even closer when she saw the two men shake hands and part ways, each disappearing at the far end of the alley. How Jake Spencer and Robert Farrell knew each other or what they were discussing was troublesome. Knowing now that Jake had lied to her yesterday when he claimed he did not know the reporter and had not even met him was far more hurtful and disturbing, setting off all sorts of alarm bells that left Ruth trembling.

  She tried to make sense of what she had just seen. Why had Jake lied to her? And why had she assumed he was nothing more than he appeared to be—an ordinary man trying to recover from a dreadful injury?

  She paused to shift Lily back up a bit and shook her head. Maybe she was simply overreacting, or maybe she was misinterpreting what she had seen. Had Farrell and Jake simply run into each other, whereupon Farrell said something that angered Jake? If that were true, what were they doing in that alley?

  Sighing, she continued on her way since she did not have any answers to her many questions, but her trust in Jake Spencer had been sorely eroded. She faulted herself for letting down her defenses and vowed to be much more careful in the future, especially when she was at her garden.

  When Lily finally woke up and tried to squirm down, Ruth relished the distraction and set the toddler on her feet. She tried to keep hold of Lily’s hand, but Lily promptly yanked free. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you a little freedom,” she said, hoping she had not put their mutual freedom at risk through her interaction with Jake Spencer.

  Suddenly Lily charged in front of her, headed for the roadway to the right. Ruth swooped her up and set her back down again in the soft grasses on her left. “No, Lily,” she said firmly and blocked the child when she tried running back to the roadway again. To her relief, Lily toddled ahead in the grass as Ruth watched her carefully, ready to intervene again. Wearing a lavender frock and matching bonnet that Phanaby had chosen this morning, the little girl looked absolutely adorable, but the color itself gave Ruth pause.

  According to what she had read in the newspapers, Rosalie Peale had been well-known for wearing the lavender gowns that had become her trademark. Lily’s wardrobe, which was finer in both quality and extent than Ruth’s, proved that her mother had earned well, too.

  Rather than judge the poor murdered woman for the sinful life she had chosen for herself, or the child she had loved well enough to provide such an elaborate wardrobe, Ruth focused her attention on Lily. She paused to watch, in awe, as Lily started twirling round and round, her arms open wide. When she started to lose her balance, Ruth edged behind her to keep her from falling. She sat Lily down on the ground when she saw that the child’s eyes were getting a bit glazed and quickly sat down beside her. “I think you need to rest a bit,” she crooned.

  Lily promptly lay back and tugged on Ruth’s arm, and Ruth realized she used those very words when putting Lily down for her afternoon nap. Chuckling, she lay down beside the little one. “Just for a moment, then we have to join everyone for our picnic dinner,” she suggested, and realized she was probably making a spectacle of herself by lying in the grass with Lily.

  Ruth glanced over at the crowd of people enjoying the picnic and smiled. Folks were too busy chatting or filling their plates with food to notice much of anything else. Looking up, with the brim of her bonnet blocking the glare of the overhead sun, she pointed to a small group of clouds corralled between two branches. “Those are pretty white clouds, Lily. See?”

  Lily pointed upward. “ ’Loud,” she repeated, looked around, squinted, and pointed to her left. “ ’Loud.”

  “That’s yellow. That’s the sun, and you can only see a tiny part of it,” she said gently. “The sun is really much bigger than those little clouds, and it’s very bright so we mustn’t look directly at it.”

  “Big!” Lily cried and opened her arms wide. “Lily big!”

  “Yes, you’re getting to be a very big girl, and a dear one,”

  Ruth murmured, surprised at how quickly Lily was slipping past all her defenses, nurturing feelings as instinctive and natural as if Lily had been her own child.

  “Mercy! Are you both hurt?”

  Startled, Ruth turned her head in the opposite direction and saw a curtain of gray flowered skirts. She raised her gaze and saw the face of an elderly woman she had yet to meet. Unfortunately, she did recognize the man standing next to her, leaning on his cane, and assumed his companion was most likely Spinster Wyndam.

  “We’re both fine,” Ruth insisted and scrambled to her feet. She urged Lily to stand up again and brushed off the bits of grass and dirt clinging to the toddler’s frock before attending to her own skirts. “We just stopped to play a bit,” she explained.

  The elderly woman, who had a pale brown freckle that dimpled one of her cheeks, was by far the homeliest woman Ruth had ever met. But she gazed at her with kind eyes that also twinkled with a bit of mischief. She nudged Jake with her elbow and looked up at him. “And here I was hoping you could rescue this lovely young woman and her precious little girl. We ladies do love a strong, handsome protector, you know,” she ventured before returning her gaze to Ruth.

  Ruth tried not to cringe, wondering if Jake would be her protector or her nemesis.

  “Mr. Spencer pointed you and your daughter out to me while you were walking over to join everyone,” the elderly woman said. “But the next time I looked, there you were, lying on the ground, and I insisted that he bring me along to make certain you were both all right. I’m afraid it never occurred to either one of us that you might have taken a moment to play. But that’s not important now. After all I’ve heard about you, I so wanted to meet you, Ruth. I’m Spinster Wyndam. Gloria Alexandra Wyndam.”

  Ruth caught Lily around the waist and hoisted her up to rest on her hip. “I’m pleased to meet you,” she said, although she had hoped to avoid the inveterate matchmaker, especially since it seemed obvious the woman had set her sights on pairing up Ruth with Jake. “Mr. Spencer,” she said to acknowledge him and noticed his cheeks were a bit flushed. A remnant from his earlier argument? Or embarrassment at Spinster Wyndam’s obvious intentions?

  She glanced down at Lily and furrowed her brow. Now that the child was closer to eye level with the newcomers
, she seemed too mesmerized by the freckle on Spinster Wyndam’s cheek to do more than sit quietly and stare at the woman. Completely ignoring Jake Spencer, Ruth continued the conversation with the woman. “I trust that you were pleased with the painting work Mr. Spencer did for you yesterday.”

  Spinster Wyndam smiled. “Indeed I am, although I was rather disappointed that he had to return home instead of staying overnight in the barn. I barely slept all night for worrying about him walking all the way home with his poor back bothering him after all the work he did for me.”

  Ruth felt the blood drain from her face, horrified to think he had been inside the cabin when she had been at her garden this morning to hear her crying, or worse—that he had actually gotten out of bed, gone outside, and seen her so distressed. “You were home last night,” she managed, wondering if he had reported what he must have seen and heard early this morning to Farrell, which might have sparked their argument in some way.

  “Unfortunately, I had little choice,” he offered, garnering Ruth’s attention again. “I spilled paint on the trousers I’d brought with me to wear to services today and had to get another pair. Since I didn’t want to risk aggravating my back, I thought it best not to walk all the way back again.”

  Ruth’s heart started to pound, and she had to lock her knees together to keep her legs from buckling.

  “I’m afraid I took a double dose of that remedy from Mr. Garner as soon as I got back to the cabin.”

  Her head snapped up. “You did?”

  He moved his cane closer. “My back started to seize up again, and I knew I had to do something because I didn’t want to disappoint Spinster Wyndam,” he offered. “I managed to get the medication and put a blanket on the floor because I knew I couldn’t make it up the ladder to the sleeping loft. By then, I couldn’t even crawl over to the door to the cabin and latch it tight.”

  He paused and started to chuckle. “I sleep very, very soundly with a single dose, just like Mr. Garner said I would, but after twice as much, I’m afraid I’d still be sleeping if that dumb turkey that’s been hanging around the cabin hadn’t slipped inside and started poking at me.”

  Her heart leaped with relief. “No!”

  “Yes, it did, dear,” the spinster said with a grin. “See? He’s got a good gash, right there on his chin. Even so, he still managed to come back to escort me to services, just as he promised, although he was a tad late,” the spinster added with a frown. “We scarcely made it inside before the services started, but I thought he completely abandoned me afterward. Fortunately, he came back from running some sort of errand just in time to help me meet you, although I can’t fathom how he can be off and about with that bothersome back of his.”

  “Indeed,” Ruth murmured, noting the flush on his cheeks had deepened.

  Jake cleared his throat, and she saw his knuckles whiten as he leaned more heavily on his cane. “If truth be told, I slipped out to go back and get a bit more of the remedy. My back is rather unpredictable, and I didn’t want to have to leave the picnic early.”

  Another lie. How many more lies would he tell her?

  He cleared his throat. “That said, I don’t suppose I could convince either of you ladies to keep the sorry tale of that turkey nipping me to yourselves so folks would just think I nicked myself shaving,” he said meekly, glancing from one woman to the other.

  Spinster Wyndam shrugged. “I suppose I could, but only if you agree to come to supper this week at my house with Ruth.”

  He nodded, albeit reluctantly.

  “You’ll come, won’t you, Ruth?” the woman asked.

  “I-I don’t think so,” Ruth said, anxious to distance herself from this man and the woman’s efforts to match them together. “Lily takes up much of my time, and with the housework and helping Mr. Garner in the apothecary, I really don’t think I should impose by asking them to watch Lily while I—”

  “Then bring her with you,” the elderly woman insisted.

  Ruth cringed. “No, really, I couldn’t. Her table manners are still so poor, and she tends to be a bit cranky by the end of the day. Thank you, but no. I really shouldn’t.”

  “Then I’ll just speak to Phanaby myself and ask her to watch Lily for you. I’m quite certain she would want you to have a bit of free time for yourself. And don’t argue with me. I’m your elder. Now come along, Ruth. A number of us have a few special gifts to give you to welcome you to our village, and we’re anxious to see how you like them.”

  Nineteen

  Much to Ruth’s complete consternation, Robert Farrell did not leave on Monday or even the following day. He finally boarded the stagecoach at the very last possible moment on Wednesday morning, just before the stage pulled out at seven o’clock, splashing southwest along ruts filled with water from the heavy rain the night before.

  Ruth, however, was more horrified than overjoyed since Elias and Phanaby were also on board. En route for a twoday visit with friends who lived in Forked River, they had Lily tucked on the seat between them, a basket filled with breakfast, and Ruth’s prayers that they would survive traveling with their little companion without incident.

  Ruth kept pace with the stagecoach, waving to her new family inside and trying not to panic before it finally pulled ahead. By the time she had decided she needed to tell the Garners about seeing Jake and Farrell together, the couple had announced their trip, insisting on taking Lily along. Noting their excitement, she decided to wait to tell them, fearing they’d delay their trip otherwise. She did not trust anyone more than the Garners to protect Lily, and she tried not to let her fears get the best of her, ruining the total freedom, endless peace, and absolute solitude she would enjoy for the next two days.

  Her intent was to gather the bushel of gifts from the women in the congregation and carry them out to her garden, along with her own picnic breakfast. She’d also promised Phanaby she’d deliver a pail of food to Jake Spencer.

  The air was still moist with the recent rain, rich with earthy scents she had never detected while living in the city. She hustled down Main Street and nodded politely to several passersby she had seen at Sunday services, as well as Mr. Toby, who was sitting outside the general store on the other side of the street, waiting for it to open.

  When she spied several people talking together outside of Burkalow’s Tavern two squares ahead and realized two of those people were the Jones cousins, she left the walkway and started across the street to reach an alley that would take her to the bridge without being seen. Otherwise she would lose half her morning listening to the two cousins bantering back and forth without saying much at all.

  She had no desire to meet up with Spinster Wyndam, either. Unfortunately, the inveterate matchmaker had been able to convince Phanaby while at the picnic that having Ruth to supper with Jake Spencer was a good idea. But she had every hope that Phanaby would support Ruth’s decision not to go once Ruth told her about Jake lying to her about not knowing Robert Farrell.

  Ruth reached the alley without incident, but hesitated to continue because the alley was so muddy. Still, to preserve her time of solitude, she decided to navigate around the thick puddles of mud and lakes of rainwater. She was only partway down the alley, however, when she heard something following her.

  She looked back over her shoulder and saw a young man she had never seen before, who was astride a scrawny, slowmoving mule. She was confident she could stay far enough ahead that neither the man nor his mule posed any threat to her—until she noticed the reins in the man’s hands were slack, his shoulders were sagging, and his eyes were closed.

  In all truth, he looked like he had fallen asleep!

  “He’s either crazy or he knows he can completely trust that aged mule—something I’m not prepared to do,” she grumbled. Tightening her shawl around her shoulders, she maneuvered around several large puddles as fast as she could but had to slow down to stretch her legs over the deep ruts in the roadway that surrounded rainwater that had yet to drain away.


  She glanced over her shoulder again, noted the mule was much too close, and sighed with relief when she noticed a wide patch of dry ground just ahead, bordering the alleyway where she could get out of harm’s way. She managed to reach it yet realized too late that the lighter color she assumed to be dry ground was in reality a large, flat boulder.

  The smooth surface was dry, but her slippers were just damp enough that she slid forward. She struggled and finally found good balance when a wave of cold water washed over her feet. “Ugh!” With her teeth clenched, she whirled about and nearly lost her footing in the process.

  She glared at the gangly young man sitting on the mule directly in front of her, not caring a whit that her cry of distress had startled him awake.

  Blushing, he tugged at the reins. “Whoa, Shortcake. Whoa, you dumb critter. I said whoa!”

  The mule brayed a protest but eventually obeyed. As soon as the animal stopped, the man hopped off its back, dragging the filthy coarse blanket he had been using into the mud, and ran back a few steps to reach her. “I’m so sorry, ma’am. Shortcake didn’t mean no harm,” he croaked, his voice slipping between childhood and manhood.

  His face was as crimson as some of the roses that had decorated the meetinghouse on Sunday, and the blush spread to his ears as well. Dressed in coveralls that had more patches than cloth, he was extremely thin and looked as if he had not eaten a full meal for a good long while.

  He snatched the hat off his head, unleashing a cowlick as thick as some of the cattails growing along the river’s edge, and twisted it nervously in one hand while holding the end of the reins in the other. “You hurt any?”

  She clenched her teeth and took a quick peek over her shoulder to inspect her skirts before she offered him a scowl. “Other than having the hem of my skirts drenched with muddy water, along with my slippers? No, I’m not hurt, although it isn’t fair to put any blame on the mule. You’re the one who fell asleep, not … Shortcake,” she snapped, once she remembered the name of the mule.