Love's First Bloom

by Delia Parr

  Ruth removed the compress from Phanaby’s forehead and her fingertips brushed the woman’s skin, which was far hotter than she expected. She poured fresh water into the basin on the bed table, rinsed the compress, and wrung it out before gently laying it back in place.

  Phanaby stirred. Without opening her eyes, she lifted a hand from beneath the covers and grew restless until Ruth covered her hand with her own. “I’m here,” she whispered. “Just rest. Dr. Woodward should be here soon.”

  Phanaby blinked several times before she opened her eyes, but when she tried to speak, her voice was too soft to be heard.

  “Would you like some water?”

  An almost imperceptible nod.

  After taking two awkward sips, however, she closed her eyes, and Ruth used the handkerchief in her pocket to wipe away the water that trickled down the woman’s chin. She held Phanaby’s hand and bowed her head. Completely exhausted, Ruth found she did not even have the strength to think of any words to say. So she prayed with all she had to offer: the silent words of her heart.

  Elias returned half an hour later to tell her that Dr. Woodward had been called to an accident down at the mill in Double Trouble late yesterday and had not yet come home. He was clearly upset, and Ruth grew increasingly worried about him when he left again every few hours to go to the doctor’s home to inquire if he had returned, even though the doctor’s wife had promised to send him to the apothecary the moment he rode back to the village.

  Finally, in late afternoon, when Elias returned with Dr. Woodward, Phanaby was much worse. At that point, Elias was frantic with worry, and Ruth feared that the Prodigal Daughter who had reclaimed her faith in God and served Him so well for the past fifteen years would be with her beloved Savior before the sun rose again.

  While Lily was napping, Ruth kept a tense vigil with Elias, who paced up and down the length of the hallway. Finally, Dr. Woodward stepped into the hall. Grim-faced, he closed the door behind him when Elias was at the end of the hallway near the staircase door.

  Elias froze in place and hesitated for just a moment, as if he was afraid to hear the doctor’s diagnosis, before rushing to the man. “What’s wrong with her? Can you help her? Tell me you can help her. Please!”

  An exhausted Dr. Woodward put his hand on Elias’s shoulder. “I’m not entirely certain what’s wrong, but I’ve bled her and she’s resting a bit more comfortably now. I’ll stop back later tonight and check on her,” he offered before turning to Ruth. “In the meantime, since nothing else you’ve done has helped, you might want to see if she can take some bark tea made from white willow. It would likely help if you could bathe her with cloths dipped in that tea as well.”

  “I can do that,” she assured him, certain that Elias would have the herb she needed downstairs in the apothecary, if not the storeroom.

  Elias clenched his fists. “But what is it? Why is my wife so ill?”

  “We’ll know more tonight. Hopefully, she’ll be much improved by then,” the elderly doctor replied and left both of them standing there, silent in their private petitions to God.

  Ruth touched Elias’s arm. “If you could go downstairs and find the white willow bark, I’ll start heating the water to make tea,” she said, gently prompting him. When he started to shake his head, she assumed he did not want to be that far away from his wife. “Just tell me where to find it, instead,” she suggested, aware that he could save her from wasting valuable time trying to find it.

  His eyes glistened. “I can’t. I sold the last of it to Mrs. Sloan just last week, and it’s not something other folks normally keep around because it’s imported from Europe and very expensive,” he murmured, and his voice cracked with every word he spoke.

  “How much did you sell Mrs. Sloan?” she asked, but she had to repeat her question several times before he answered her.

  “I told you. All that I had.”

  “Which was probably twice what she needed because she always insists she have extra on hand. Am I right?” Ruth asked.

  As he blinked his tears away, his eyes sparkled with hope. “Y-yes. As a matter of fact, she does.”

  “You stay here with your wife. Since Lily’s still napping, I’ll go down to the general store and talk Mrs. Sloan into giving me whatever she has left,” she insisted. She was halfway down the staircase when he called out to her.

  “Stop. You can’t go outside.”

  Startled by his sharply spoken words, Ruth halted and looked back over her shoulder. “I can’t go outside? Why not?”

  He motioned for her to return, and she mounted the stairs quickly. Once she was back in the hall, he shut the door behind her and his gaze darkened. “When I was looking for Dr. Woodward today, I overheard people talking about a reporter who arrived yesterday afternoon from New York City. I’m sorry—I nearly forgot to tell you. The man’s registered right up the street at Burkalow’s. I don’t think it’s safe for you to go outside until he’s finished up his stay here and leaves.”

  Her poor heart dropped so fast and so hard, she feared it would hit her feet and burst.

  “I’m sorry, Ruth. He’s a reporter for the Transcript, and he’s reserved accommodations at Burkalow’s for the next two weeks. From what I could gather, he’s already been holding court at the tavern and entertaining folks with stories about Reverend Livingstone’s trial and the search that continues for his daughter. He claims he’s followed a number of women who worked in Mrs. Browers’s brothel to find out what they knew about Rosalie Peale. If by chance he’s followed you here because he thinks you might know something about her, or recognizes you since you worked in the city—”

  “His name,” Ruth managed. “Did you learn his name?”

  He raked his fingers through his hair. “I think they said his name was Porter or Potter or …”

  “Porter. His name is Eldridge Porter. I think I know exactly who he is,” she whispered. She found it hard to believe it was mere coincidence that one of the few reporters who had actually seen her when her father granted a number of interviews at home before his arrest would have chosen to come to Toms River.

  More likely, he had somehow traced her here, and she knew beyond any doubt that she had no choice but to remain inside these living quarters just as Elias had suggested. Once she helped nurse Phanaby back to health, she would have to take Lily and leave the village. But without a single coin to her name, she had no idea how she could afford to leave, or where she would go, or how she would support them both— unless she could somehow find a way to reach Capt. Grant and convince him to help her.

  Thirty-Two

  Forced into exile from the village proper, Jake stood outside his cabin and watched the hot summer sun edge closer to the western horizon at the head of the river. He was so furious he could not decide whether to direct his anger at himself or Clifford, but settled on Eldridge Porter, the reporter for the Transcript who had taken up residence at Burkalow’s several days ago.

  He had been well acquainted with Porter until leaving two years ago, and there was not a doubt in Jake’s mind that Porter would recognize him. Unable to monitor the reporter’s activities, Jake could only imagine what progress Porter was making in pursuing the story he claimed to be writing about the late Rev. Livingstone and his daughter—the only tidbit of news about the man Jake had been able to glean before hibernating in his cabin.

  Unfortunately, Porter was not an inexperienced reporter like Robert Farrell, and Jake knew only too well that the man was too driven and too anxious to make a name for himself not to have come here to Toms River without a good reason. Jake now faced the very real possibility of failing to complete his assignment before the Transcript ended up printing the story he needed to write for the Galaxy.

  He tore back into the cabin and slammed the door behind him. The fire, which he had started before going outside, was now blazing. Although the heat it provided made the air in the cabin unbearably sultry, he did not have any choice. The only way Jake could be certain no one e
lse would read the information contained in the letter Capt. Grant had secured inside one of the newspapers that his seamen had delivered just an hour ago was to burn the letter.

  He tossed Clifford’s letter into the fire. As flames began to lick at the missive, he watched it ignite. For good measure, Jake added every piece of correspondence he’d received from his brother, along with the legal papers relinquishing his share of the newspaper so Clifford could find a suitable investor to replace him.

  Still, his anger and disgust remained, along with his fear that Porter might have uncovered the same information that Clifford had reported to him. If he had, the small fortune Clifford had paid to guarantee the information was exclusive had been wasted.

  The information itself, however, was so explosive, he knew his brother would have paid any price to get it from his source, Evelyn Billings. She was the sister of a woman who had worked as Peale’s maid in Mrs. Browers’s brothel. She claimed the child Ruth was raising now as her own was in fact Rosalie Peale’s daughter, Lily, a child who had been raised in secrecy by Billings herself. Even more scandalously, Billings also claimed that Lily’s father was the same man who had argued with Rosalie Peale and killed her in the midst of the argument, the same man who had rifled through the prostitute’s room and stolen a number of items, and the very same man who had sent his older daughter into hiding with the evidence he had stolen that would have convicted him: Rev. Gersham Livingstone.

  Clifford also ordered his brother to confront Ruth with Billings’s allegations and return to New York City by week’s end with a full article ready to be set to print. Jake’s anger at his brother raged anew. But as the letter burst into an orange ball, he came to realize he had no one to blame but himself. He was the one who had slowly developed a relationship under the guise of undercover reporting, when truth be told he was far more interested in the captivating woman instead of the scandal he was to reveal. And he was also the one who had taken that one final moment they shared together for himself as a man, rather than as a reporter, and kissed her.

  Just one kiss.

  One soul-wrenching kiss.

  That was all it took for him to know there would not be another time or another place for him to fall in love.

  The time was right now.

  The place was right here.

  And as much as he had tried to deny it, he knew in his heart that Ruth was the only woman he would ever love, just as he knew that by loving her, she was the one woman who could cost him the one thing he so desperately wanted to achieve: his redemption.

  He watched the letter slowly blacken into ash, a troubling symbol of his efforts to deny his love for her. He had tried working from dawn to dusk, doing odd jobs throughout the village for the past two weeks, so he would not even be tempted to see her when she worked in her garden.

  He ended up dreaming about her every night.

  The ashes began to drift to the hearthstone, and he sighed heavily. He would never be able to write the story he knew his brother expected him to write—indeed, a story he had expected himself to write. Unless he could find a way to fall out of love with her.

  Sweating profusely, he turned his back to the fire, walked away, and started pacing from the front of the cabin to the rear and back again. Regardless of what he did or did not do about his feelings for Ruth, he had no time left to wallow in self-pity or what might have been. He had to choose what he wanted and act decisively now, or he would lose both the woman he loved and the career he wanted to reclaim, ending up with nothing at all.

  He carefully weighed his options. If he followed his heart and turned his back on his career, as well as his brother, he could wait for Ruth to come to her garden tomorrow morning and confess all the lies he had told her. By some miracle, if he could convince her that he had fallen in love with her, they could take Lily, run away together, and settle down as a family somewhere far away.

  “Not a good idea,” he whispered, kicking at the dirt floor with the toe of his boot. He’d already made the mistake of running from a problem instead of facing it. Taking Ruth and Lily into hiding with him would not help either one of them, either. Sooner or later, a reporter would find them, and they could not spend their lives constantly relocating, running away from a past that would eventually catch up with them.

  Jake stopped in front of the ladder to the loft, lifted the cane he had hung from one of the rungs, and threw it across the room. He watched the cane bang into the table before it flipped, end over end, and landed in the fire.

  He walked over to the hearth and braced both hands on the edge of the mantel. He let the cane burn, knowing the ruse he had concocted to fool everyone, especially Ruth, would haunt him for the rest of his life.

  He ignored several sharp knocks at the door, but when the cabin door opened, he whipped around and saw Capt. Grant closing the door behind him. “As warm as it is outside, you’ve got a fire going? It’s hotter than Hades in here,” he complained.

  “Hades sounds about right,” Jake quipped and shook hands with the older man. “I didn’t think I’d see you tonight.”

  “Given that your brother was unusually snappish when he handed me the letter to bring to you, I suspected he didn’t have good news. So … since I had the chance to pick up some cargo that needs to be in Baltimore tomorrow afternoon, I thought I’d better stop by tonight. I’ll be back here on Thursday, though, and then sail to New York City on Friday.”

  Jake swallowed hard. “My work here is finished, so I’ll be needing passage with you on Friday. What do you want me to do about the cabin?”

  Grant let out a sigh. “I’ve got a couple of folks in mind who might be able to use it. Stop by the livery tomorrow and ask for Ned Clarke. Tell him to ask his father if he’d like to move closer to the village now that his boy’s working here and he’s working at the mill in Double Trouble. Just don’t mention my name. Nobody around here knows I actually own this cabin and the land it sits on. I’d like to keep it that way. You can let me know on Friday if they’d like to use the cabin.”

  Jake nodded, hopeful he could slip into the livery in the early morning hours before Porter would be up and ready to start the day. “Passage back to New York City for me won’t be a problem, will it?”

  The captain walked over to the window facing the river, swung the shutter open, and stood by it as fresh air blew into the cabin. “Not for me, but it looks like it might be a problem for your brother—unless there’s someone else who’s responsible for that peevish look on your face.”

  Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Can you stay for a while or do you have to get back to the ship?”

  Capt. Grant looked out the window and shrugged. “It’s already dark. I’ve got about five minutes, maybe less if the fool waiting for me in that dinghy out there takes one more swig from that bottle of hard cider I bought for myself. So speak fast and don’t dawdle on details.”

  Jake cleared his throat. He probably needed a good hour, just to lay a proper foundation before he could ask this man to help him make the right choice. With only five minutes, he had to go straight to the core of his dilemma, but had difficulty choosing the right words. “What matters more? A man’s principles? Or his work? Or … or his—”

  “Or his heart?” The older man chuckled for a moment, but when he turned to face Jake, his expression was sober. “If a man has the right principles, he invariably chooses the right work to do. His heart will lead him to the one woman who will help him to be true to both.” He walked to the door and opened it.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he smiled. “Perhaps you might consider a more important question that makes all the others seem irrelevant: What could possibly matter to any man if he spends even a single day of his life without serving God? Answer that question correctly, and you won’t have any trouble knowing what to do. He’ll show you.” Then the captain walked out the door and closed it behind him.

  Dumbfounded, Jake could not move a muscle. By the time he recovered his wits and
rushed out of the cabin to the shore of the river, the captain and the dinghy, along with the seaman at the oars, had all but disappeared into the darkness. He waited until he could no longer hear the oars swiping through the water before he turned and started walking along the shoreline.

  The air outside was warm, but it was a far sight cooler than the heat in the cabin. He fumed as he walked. When he grew weary of his anger, and his disappointment that Capt. Grant had left him to ponder such a provocative question, he walked over to the bench he had built for Ruth and found that pesky turkey sitting there.

  Annoyed, he shooed it off and sat down, then became even more annoyed when the bird decided to stand a few feet away watching him, as if ready to reclaim its spot when he left. He had built this bench to encourage her to visit her garden more often or to stay longer when she did. She had never returned to use it, not even once, but he hardly wanted the bench to end up as a place for that turkey to roost. He glared at the bird, getting only a few squawks for his effort, and dismissed it as far too inconsequential to worry about when he had his future, as well as Ruth’s, to ponder.

  As Grant’s words echoed over and over again in his mind, he looked up at the night sky. Thick clouds obscured any view of the moon and the stars, yet he knew they were there. He had seen the sun disappear at sunset more times than he could remember, but he never doubted that the sun would return to shine light upon the world the next day.

  Yet somehow, in his search for success and his need to prove himself to his brother and the world itself, he had lost sight of His Creator and had doubted Him more often than not. He had forgotten to faithfully love and serve the very God who had created the moon and the stars and the sun, and more important, the God who had created him.

  Humbled, Jake grew desperate for the redemption of not his career but his very soul. Bowing his head, he prayed, truly prayed like he had done as a child: with a faith that was strong enough to resist the temptations of this world, a heart that was open to the wonders of His love and the power of His mercy, and a spirit yearning to serve Him and Him alone. He prayed exactly the way Capt. Grant had encouraged him to do each time he had given him one of the seashells stored now in his trunk, seashells bleached white by the sun, just as the stains of his sins had been bleached white by God’s grace when he asked for God’s forgiveness.