The Pattern

by Jane Peart

  The Pattern

  1

  Books by Jane Peart

  The American Quilts Series

  The Pattern

  The Pledge

  The Promise

  The Westward Dreams Series

  Runaway Heart

  Promise of the Valley

  Where Tomorrow Waits

  A Distant Dawn

  The Brides of Montclair Series

  Valiant Bride

  Ransomed Bride

  Fortune’s Bride

  Folly’s Bride

  Yankee Bride/Rebel Bride

  Gallant Bride

  Shadow Bride

  Destiny’s Bride

  Jubilee Bride

  Mirror Bride

  Hero’s Bride

  Senator’s Bride

  The Pattern

  1

  The American Quilt Series

  Jane Peart

  ZONDERVAN

  The Pattern

  Copyright © 1996 by Jane Peart and Jane Peart

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Zondervan.

  ePub Edition OCTOBER 2009 ISBN: 978-0-310-83260-7

  Requests for information should be addressed to:

  Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530

  * * *

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Peart, Jane.

  The pattern: Johanna Shelby’s story / Jane Peart.

  p. cm.—(American quilt series; bk. 1)

  ISBN: 0-310-20166-7 (softcover)

  I. Title. II. Series: Peart, Jane. American quilt series, bk. 1.

  PS3566.E238P38 1996

  813’.54--dc 20

  96-2460

  CIP

  * * *

  Edited by Robin Schmitt

  Interior design by Sherri L. Hoffman

  Frontispiece illustration by Michael Ingle Part title illustrations by Adam Bloom

  96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 /♦ DH/ 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Half Title Page

  Other Books By

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part Two

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Preview

  Dear Reader

  Prologue to The Pledge

  How to Make Johanna’s Luilt

  Acknowledgments

  About The Publisher

  Consumer Engagement

  Part One

  Chapter One

  Hillsboro, North Carolina December 1839

  Johanna Shelby, eighteen and recently having returned home from boarding school, stood looking out through the rain-smeared bedroom window. It had started raining early in the morning and had continued steadily all day. Now it was coming down in sheets.

  Sighing impatiently, she turned back into the room. She gave a rueful glance at her new scarlet taffeta party dress hanging on the ledge of her armoire. She was looking forward eagerly to wearing it tonight at the first party of the holiday season, held at the home of her best friend, Liddy Chalmers. But if this kept up, it might be impossible to get there, country roads being what they were.

  On her way across the room, she practiced a few dance steps, ending up by holding on to one of the bedposts, where she twirled around a couple of times before plopping down and bouncing onto the feather mattress. There she sighed again.

  Although she had only been home a few days, she already felt restless, at loose ends. Why? At school, she couldn’t wait to get home for Christmas. And now it certainly was not that she missed school! For a free-spirited girl like Johanna, the rules, regulations, routine, the tedious hours in needlework class, and the memorizing endless verses to recite in the weekly elocution programs were boring and meaningless. In fact, Johanna was determined not to go back. That is, if she could convince her parents that she was quite “finished” enough. After two and a half years at Miss Pomoroy’s Female Academy in Winston, she had had enough!

  No, it certainly wasn’t the lack of boarding school schedule that made her feel so fidgety. It was that she couldn’t seem to settle down now that she was home. She felt so betwixt and between. She had changed more than she realized while being away. She’d gone off to school when she was sixteen and didn’t seem to fit back into the family nest so neatly.

  Johanna didn’t really know what made her feel so uncomfortable back in the Shelby family circle. Maybe it was her prickly relationship with her sister Cicely, the next oldest.

  After her first greeting, Cissy had slipped back into her old adversary role with Johanna. Of course, Elly, the youngest, was adorable and as loving and lovable as ever. It was something else Johanna couldn’t define. Even though she tried, she had the uneasy feeling she didn’t really belong here anymore.

  That is why after only a few days, Johanna found herself strangely at odds with everyone. It wasn’t that she didn’t love them all. It was just that she had the strangest feeling, as if she were on the brink of something, something unknown, something that was both exciting and a little daunting.

  Johanna walked over to the window again. Putting her palms up against the steaming panes, she pressed her face against the glass. Just then the sky seemed to split open with a jagged streak of lightning that zigzagged down through dark, purple-edged clouds, sending the bare trees outside into stark silhouettes in a blinding flash. This was followed by a loud crackle of thunder that caused Johanna to jump back from the window in alarm.

  In a panic reaction, Johanna turned and ran out of the room and down the stairs into the parlor, where the rest of the family was gathered, in time to hear her mother declare, “My good gracious, that was quite a jolt. It’s a regular downpour. The roads will be rivers of mud by evening. I’ve a mind not to set out in this weather—”

  “Not go?” a chorus of protest came from both the other girls. Cissy ran to stand beside her mother, peering out the window. Elly jumped up from the hassock, dropping her cat, which she’d been holding in her lap, to exclaim, “Not go to the party?”

  “Oh Mama, surely you don’t mean that!” cried Johanna, looking at her father for support and mainly concerned about having another evening confined at home and about losing the opportunity to wear her new dress.

  “Well, I don’t know…” Mrs. Shelby’s voice trailed into uncertainty. “Just getting from the carriage to the house, we’ll get drenched for sure.”

  “Oh, it will be all right, Mama. We can bundle up and wear boots and carry our slippers ’til we get inside,” Cissy assured her. At fifteen, she was the practical one.

  “I suppose.” Mrs. Shelby’s voice still sounded tentative.

  “Please, Mama, don’t say we can’t go!” wailed Elly, who at nearly eleven had been promised this treat, her first time
to attend a really “grown-up” party.

  “Oh, come now, Rebecca,” boomed Tennant Shelby, the girls’ father, who had caught Johanna’s pleading look. He laid aside the book he had been reading to say chidingly to his wife, “Can’t let a little rain deprive these pretty young ladies of the first party of the holiday season.”

  His wife gave him a cautionary look. Tennant was so indulgent of their three daughters, especially Johanna, that it was she who sometimes had to exert discipline or take the stern parental role. However, she was already inclined to put aside her own misgivings about the weather. The Chalmerses’ party was the first of the holiday season. After all, she wasn’t yet too old to remember what fun a dancing party could be. More to the point, with three daughters to eventually marry off, it was important that they get out socially. Particularly for Johanna, their oldest, home after her years out of circulation here in Hillsboro. Now eighteen, ready to be launched into society and ready for a serious courtship and marriage proposal. Not that it would be much of a problem. Johanna was pretty, vivacious, and bright. Any number of eligible young men would no doubt find her attractive. It was only a matter of choosing the right one.

  Rebecca felt all three pairs of anxious eyes upon her. Waiting an appropriate length of time, she said slowly, “Well, I suppose it will be all right. If we leave early enough and you make sure Thomas drives carefully.” This admonition was directed at her husband. Her decision was greeted by exclamations of relief and delight by her daughters.

  By dark, the icy rain had turned to sleet, and once more Mrs. Shelby voiced her doubts about the wisdom of venturing out over rutted roads in the stormy night. Again she was the lone dissenter, and again she was coaxed, cajoled, persuaded. Finally, at half-past seven, swathed in hooded cloaks, shod in sturdy boots, their portmanteaus containing dainty slippers into which they could change upon their arrival, they were at last ready to leave. In high spirits, the three Shelby girls climbed into the family carriage. Inside the narrow interior, settling their crinolines, they seated themselves opposite their parents. As the carriage jolted along the country roads now running with streams of mud, the girls chattered merrily, giggling at whatever nonsensical things one or the other of them said. Elly, squeezed between her older sisters, was wildly excited to have been allowed to come along. She was ecstatic at the prospect of the evening ahead.

  Upon reaching the Chalmerses’ house, Thomas, the Shelbys’ coachman, pulled up as close to the covered side porch as possible. With Rebecca issuing warnings to be careful, the three girls, giggling with nervous excitement, descended from the carriage. Jumping over puddles, they ran through the pelting rain up the front steps of the house, through the door opened by the jovial Mr. Chalmers, and into the front hall.

  The warm, candlelit house was already filled with the sound of fiddle music, lighthearted laughter, and happy voices. Someone took Johanna’s cape, and as she stood there for a minute looking about, Liddy Chalmers, her closest friend from childhood, came rushing up to her. “Oh, Johanna! I’m so glad to see you! I was afraid you might not come! Isn’t this weather dreadful?” She gave Johanna’s arm an excited squeeze. “Come on. You can primp in my bedroom before we go in to dance.” She lowered her voice significantly. “Burton Lassiter’s been pacing up and down like a madman, waiting for you to arrive! I hid your dance card so he wouldn’t fill up every slot.”

  Liddy propelled Johanna back through the narrow hall to her downstairs bedroom, chatting all the while. “I absolutely love your dress, Johanna! It’s a perfect color for you.”

  Sitting on the mounting steps to the high, four-poster bed, Johanna bent to pull off her boots and get her dancing shoes out of her bag. Liddy continued to talk as Johanna took out the red satin slippers with the tiny silk roses on the toes and slipped them on her feet.

  “It’s going to be such a fun party. I wish you could spend the night so we could stay up till all hours and talk.” Suddenly Liddy clapped her hands. “Maybe the weather will worsen and you’ll have to! Anyway, come along. Papa’s about to call the first reel.”

  At the entrance to the parlor, now cleared of furniture for dancing, the eager Burton Lassiter was quick to find Johanna and claim her as his partner for the Virginia Reel, which was usually the dance to open a party.

  When they finally came to a breathless halt after the lively dance, Johanna’s gaze swept the room. It was then she became aware of the young man leaning against the pilaster in the archway.

  He was very tall and his dark shaggy hair needed a good trim. He was not handsome, and his features were too irregular, with a strong nose and a determined mouth. However, the combination was oddly attractive. His gray eyes, regarding her so steadily, were intelligent yet held a hint of humor.

  As the stranger glanced at her, Johanna experienced the strangest sensation, as if somehow they knew each other, as if they’d met somewhere. Of course, that was impossible! Yet the strong feeling lingered.

  She and Burton took their places with other couples lining up for the quadrille. The music struck up and she was swept into the promenade. Again Johanna caught sight of the stranger, and to her immediate confusion, found he was looking at her as well.

  Who was he? she wondered curiously. In spite of her odd sense of recognition, she couldn’t place him. In as small a town as Hillsboro, a stranger stood out. Surely Liddy would know. For some reason, Johanna felt an urgency to find out. Fanning herself briskly, she told Burton she was perishing from thirst and sent him off to fetch her a glass of punch. Then she quickly darted to Liddy’s side. Taking her by the wrist, she led her aside and whispered, “Come with me. I have to talk to you!”

  Puzzled but compliant, Liddy followed Johanna’s lead down the hall to her bedroom. Some of the other girls were already there, restoring hairdos and primping in front of the mirror as they came in.

  “What is it?” Liddy asked.

  “Who is that tall fellow standing beside Dr. Murrison? Is he new in town? A relative? A nephew? Who?”

  “That’s Dr. Murrison’s new assistant.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “His name is Ross Davison. He’s been with Dr. Murrison for a few months now. He came after you left for school in September.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “If you heard him talk, you wouldn’t have to ask where he’s from,” a voice behind them said with a snicker. Unaware that they’d been overheard, both girls turned around. Emily Archer, a girl Johanna had never liked very well, was standing in front of the full-length mirror. Her face in the glass had a know-it-all smirk. But at the moment, she had the information Johanna wanted, so Johanna swallowed her dislike to ask, “What do you mean? Is he a foreigner?”

  Emily giggled shrilly. “No, silly, he’s from the mountains!”

  “Mountains?”

  “From Millscreek Gap, for pity’s sake!” Emily fluffed her corkscrew curls and patted her skirt, turning this way and that as she surveyed herself in the mirror. “I suppose he must be educated—I mean, to be a doctor and all,” she remarked indifferently. “But he still has that hill twang.” Emily mimicked, “You kin jest tell.”

  Johanna frowned. She suddenly remembered why she had never liked Emily very much. Emily had a sharp tongue. She was always quick with a snide remark, a mean comment, or a sly innuendo. For some reason, it made Johanna cross to hear Emily make fun of that young man with his serious expression and deep-set, thoughtful eyes. But Johanna let it pass, not wanting to appear too interested in the newcomer. Emily had a razor-like tongue, liked nothing better than to tease. Johanna was not about to become her target by giving her anything to turn into a joke.

  “Come on,” she said to Liddy. “Burton’s waiting for me with punch.” She slipped her hand into Liddy’s arm and they made their escape.

  “What a cat that Emily is!” commented Liddy as they hurried out into the hall. “Actually, Dr. Davison is very well mannered and pleasant. Dr. Murrison sent him over when my little brother Billy
had croup, and he couldn’t have been nicer.”

  Back in the parlor, Burton was nowhere in sight, and Johanna allowed her gaze to seek that of the young doctor. As her eyes met his, he turned and spoke to Dr. Murrison. Then, to her surprise, they both crossed the room. “Well, Johanna, my dear, it’s nice to see you home from Winston and looking so well,” Dr. Murrison said. “I don’t believe you’ve met my new assistant, Ross Davison.”

  Johanna’s heart gave a little leap. “No, Dr. Murrison, I’ve not had the pleasure. Good evening, Dr. Davison,” she managed to say, fluttering her fan to cool her suddenly flushed face.

  “Good evening, Miss Shelby. I trust you are having a pleasant time?”

  His voice was deep. There was a trace of the mountain twang to it, as Emily had said. However, Johanna did not find it at all unpleasant.

  “Yes, indeed. And you?” As she looked up at him, Johanna felt a tingling in her wrists and fingertips.

  It was uncanny, Johanna thought, this feeling of recognition. As though somehow they had been parted a long time and were, at this very moment, seeing each other again. The sensation was bewildering.

  “If you have not already promised it, may I have the next dance?” His question brought her back to the present moment.

  Even though she had promised the next three, Johanna simply put her hand in Ross’s, felt his fingers close over it. He bowed from his great height, and she moved with him out onto the polished dance floor as the first notes of the next set began. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Burton, looking bewildered and a little indignant, glancing around in search of his missing partner. But she didn’t care. She knew she was exactly where she wanted to be, dancing with this tall newcomer.

  Ross was not the best of dancers. He was a little unsure and stiff, his height making him rather awkward. It did not matter to Johanna. She felt as if she were floating, her head spinning as fast as her feet. They circled, his hand firmly on her waist, her face upturned to his, and she could not remember ever feeling so happy. The piece ended and as they waited for the next one, they smiled at each other—as if they had danced together many times before.