The Pattern

by Jane Peart

  The days passed, one after the other, until Johanna had been in Winston almost two weeks. One morning she woke up close to despair. She felt so helpless. If only she could do something instead of sit it out and drearily wait for her parents to alter their decision. She had no idea what her mother had arranged with Aunt Honey about how long she was to stay at Aunt Jo’s. She was getting very weary of the seemingly endless round of Winston social life—it struck her as inconsequential and meaningless.

  Her forced “exile,” as Johanna privately termed her visit, did provide a chance for some rare introspection, something she had little time for at home. In Rebecca’s well-run household, every chore was assigned, checked upon, every moment of the day accounted for. But here Johanna often lay awake at night after the rest of the house was quiet, its occupants asleep. Then most often her thoughts flew to Ross. She wondered what he was doing, tried to imagine him meeting with patients or perhaps sitting at his study table at night, his dark head bent over his huge medical books.

  In the long nights before sleep overtook her, Johanna examined her reasons for her strong attraction for this man, who had come as a stranger into the town where she had grown up. Yet there had been an immediate bonding. It was as if heart spoke to heart, soul to soul, as if they had looked deeply into each other’s eyes and found life’s meaning there.

  It must be unusual, it must not happen often. She readily understood why her parents found it bewildering. She did, too. Even though she didn’t fully understand it herself, she knew it was real.

  Johanna decided to confide in Aunt Honey. She had always been easy to talk to, quick to sympathize, ready to understand. There was a disarming innocence about her, maybe due in part to Uncle Matt’s take-charge attitude toward her. He treated her with such caring affection, almost as if she were a child. But Honey was far from childish. She was a keen observer of and had a tolerance for human behavior, its foibles and failings. She never seemed critical nor surprised by anyone’s failures.

  One afternoon Johanna came into the parlor when Aunt Jo had gone riding, and she found Aunt Honey was alone. Her aunt raised her eyes from her knitting. “Well, dearie, are you enjoying your visit?”

  Johanna walked over to the window, fiddled with the drapery tassel, staring disconsolately out the window for a few minutes. Then spinning around, she faced her aunt. “It’s not working, you know,” she said bluntly.

  Honey surveyed her niece warily. “What do you mean, dearie?”

  “Oh, I know you had to join in the conspiracy,” Johanna blurted out. “And I don’t blame you, Aunt Honey. I know my parents think they’re doing the right thing, separating me from Ross. They think I’m going to change. But I’m not.”

  Aunt Honey lowered her knitting and looked at Johanna. “You think not, eh?”

  “I know not!” replied Johanna firmly. “I love him and he loves me. And they should just accept that.”

  “Can’t you try to see this from your parent’s viewpoint?” Aunt Honey suggested mildly.

  “I can’t. How can I?”

  “I suppose you’re right, dear. How could anyone expect you to?”

  “You do understand, don’t you, Aunt Honey?” Johanna sighed. “It’s so unfair. They won’t even let him come to the house, let themselves get to know him.” She paused, then turned to her aunt eagerly. “When we get back to Hillsboro, would you let Ross visit me at your house?”

  Startled, Honey looked at Johanna, then slowly shook her head. “Johanna, dear, I couldn’t possibly go against your parents’ wishes. It would be wrong—”

  “But it’s wrong of them to keep us apart. All I want to do is be happy! Why don’t they want me to be happy?”

  “Don’t be so harsh on your parents, Johanna. They are thinking of your happiness. They just don’t think what you want to do will make you happy.”

  “Ross will make me happy.”

  Aunt Honey looked pensive. Her eyes rested thoughtfully on her niece.

  “No other person can guarantee you happiness, Johanna. Much as you think they can. Life isn’t a fairy tale with everyone’s story having a happy ending.”

  But she saw that Johanna wasn’t really listening. There was a bemused expression on her face, a faraway look in her eyes. She was gazing somewhere into the future, a future with Ross. Honey realized she might have been talking to a stone for all the good her warning was doing. A fairy-tale romance was what Johanna was living, what she wanted. All true love, glorious sunsets, moonlit nights, music, eternal bliss. Honey sighed, perhaps she’d better write a letter to her cousin Rebecca.

  However, Honey procrastinated. Maybe it would just take more time. After all, Johanna seemed to be trying to enter into the social activities Jo arranged for her.

  At least for another week or so. Then came a day when Johanna did not come down to breakfast. She complained of a headache. When her aunt took her up a tray of tea and toast, she found Johanna’s eyes swollen from crying. The next day she remained in bed. She refused to eat, no matter what dainties or delicacies the McMillan’s cook fixed for her. She grew pale and wan. The aunties became concerned, then worried.

  “This won’t do,” Aunt Jo said severely to her cousin. “It won’t do at all.” So Honey sat down and wrote the letter she had put off writing to Rebecca and Tennant.

  My Dear Cousins,

  I hesitate to write this letter, but both Jo and I feel it is necessary to apprise you of the rather alarming decline in Johanna’s physical condition, which causes a great deal of concern. We know the reason you felt a change of scene from Hillsboro would be beneficial (her interest in Ross Davison, whom you consider an unacceptable suitor). However, we must inform you that her interest in him has not diminished, nor has her determination wavered. Her symptoms would seem grave if we all did not know their source to be emotional. To put it quite plainly, Johanna is “heartsick” and fading fast like a flower deprived of sunlight. She is without energy, enthusiasm, takes little food or liquids—in other words, she is gravely depressed. We are really concerned that she may be moving into melancholia. She no longer takes any interest in the social life here in Winston, although she has been both welcomed and sought after by the young people of Jo’s acquaintance. We therefore have come to the conclusion that it would be best if she came home, where she can have parental care.

  Your devoted cousin, Honey

  Within a week word came back that Johanna was to return to Hillsboro on the next stagecoach.

  Chapter Nine

  Johanna arrived back home looking considerably thinner and quite pale. Her first look at her daughter gave Rebecca a start. Gone were the rosy cheeks, the sparkle in her eyes, the lilt in her voice. Even if Johanna were dramatizing herself, the result was effective. Determined not to soften her attitude to her recalcitrant daughter, Rebecca simply saw to it that she ate every bite of the nourishing food placed before her, got plenty of rest and a daily walk in fresh air.

  For her part, Johanna was glad to be home, glad that her parents seemed reasonably happy to see her. Things settled back to the normal routine of life Johanna knew before she had disrupted it with her rebellion. Elly, of course, was delighted to have her adored older sister home, while Cissy seemed aloof. During Johanna’s absence, she had strenuously played the dutiful daughter, in contrast to Johanna. It amused Johanna somewhat to see her sister take advantage of the situation. It also saddened her, because although no one spoke of it, she could tell her own place in the family was not quite what it had been.

  Secretly Johanna was biding her time, trying to find some way to contact Ross or prevail on her parents to change their minds about allowing them to see each other.

  Liddy Chalmers, her first visitor, seemed shocked at her appearance. “My goodness, Johanna! What’s wrong? You look so thin and pale! Have you been ill? What has happened?”

  Tears welled up in Johanna’s eyes at the sympathy in Liddy’s voice. “Everything’s happened!” she wailed. “Everything in the world. My hea
rt is breaking. I’m in love with Ross Davison, and I don’t know what I’m going to do about it.”

  Liddy’s eyes widened. “Ross Davison? Really? I mean, I noticed you only had eyes for each other at the taffy pull, but then you went away, and—”

  Johanna poured out her heart. Liddy was titillated by the details of Johanna’s description of her secret meetings with Ross, which to Liddy’s imagination had all the elements of one of the romantic novels she devoured about star-crossed lovers. But sympathetic as she proved to be, Liddy still was shocked that Johanna had defied her parents. It just wasn’t done. Not in their ordered world. Johanna soon sensed that her friend was not as supportive as she had hoped she might be and that it would be wiser to keep her own council rather than confide in her.

  During the days after her homecoming, Johanna spent a great deal of time in her room. Ostensibly, she was working on her album quilt or otherwise putting her time to good use. Actually, she was doing much soul searching.

  Johanna knew that her parents’ purpose in sending her away to forget Ross had been a failure. It had confirmed her feelings for him, deepened her conviction that their two lives were meant to be joined.

  Johanna felt that with Ross her life would take on new depth. None of the young men her parents deemed eligible had stirred her heart, her imagination, her spirit, as Ross Davison had done. Observing the lives of the women in her family, Johanna found them a tedious round of shallow pleasures and rigid duties, restricted by limiting social rules. Johanna desperately wanted something else. She wanted her life to have meaning, to have it matter that she even existed.

  She believed strongly that by sharing Ross’s life, she would find the meaning she was searching for in her own. Johanna was convinced this was her chance. She even dared to think it was God’s purpose for her life, if she just had the courage to grasp it.

  On the brink of despair, deep in her heart she believed that if they were not allowed to marry, the rest of her life would be lonely, dissatisfied, unfulfilled.

  At length she came to the important decision to take matters into her own hands. She would send a note to Ross asking him to meet her at the bridge near the churchyard. That would be easily enough arranged, since her mother insisted on her daily “constitutional.” Whether he answered or met her or not, Johanna would accept it as God’s will. She was willing to risk leaving the result to God.

  She wrote only a few lines.

  My Dear Ross,

  I am home again and must see you so we can talk. Please meet me at the bridge near the churchyard.

  Ever your Johanna

  A little before the hour she was to meet Ross, Johanna hurried past the steepled church and, winding through the graveyard, to the arched stone bridge. The day was gray and overcast, and the willows bending over the river were bare. Johanna arrived breathless with anticipation and anxiety. What if Ross did not come? Not showing up could be his way of telling her he was not going to defy her parents’ disapproval. As she came in sight of the bridge, to her relief she saw Ross already there. She saw his tall figure, the shoulders hunched slightly, folded arms on the ledge, staring down into the rushing water below.

  She ran the last few steps toward him. At the click of her boots on the bridge, he turned, and as he did, Johanna remembered how at their first meeting she’d had the strange sensation that they were being reunited again after a very long separation. What she had felt before was some kind of mysterious precognition. Only this time it was true. This time it was really happening.

  Johanna halted and there were a few seconds of hesitation before either of them moved. Then simultaneously they both rushed forward. He caught her hands tightly in his. His gaze embraced her hungrily.

  “Oh Ross, I missed you so!” Johanna cried.

  Ross did not reply. His eyes said so much more. He simply drew her to him, holding her so close that she could feel the thud of his heart next to her own. Then, his arm around her waist, they walked down closer to the water.

  “Johanna, was this wise? I feel so guilty deceiving your father and mother by meeting you. And Dr. Murrison too. But when I got your note, I couldn’t not come. I never meant to cause such…trouble.”

  “It’s not your fault, Ross. I had to see you. I had to be sure…” Johanna paused and looked at him anxiously.

  Ross shook his head sadly. “It’s wrong to meet like this when your parents have made it clear that—”

  “Ross, don’t say that. Just listen. Listen!” she begged. “I love you. Nothing else matters if you love me, too. You do love me, don’t you?”

  “You know I do, Johanna, but I had no right to speak without first—”

  “If you love me, Ross, I have no intention of forgetting you or giving you up. I shall go to my parents, tell them. And if they still—”

  “No, Johanna.” Ross’s tone was firm, decisive. “That’s not your place. It is mine. I have given this a great deal of thought. In fact, I have thought of scarce else since you went away. I will go to your father like any honorable man would do, ask him to give me, to my face, the reasons they consider me unworthy to…court you.” The corners of his mouth lifted slightly at the use of the old-fashioned word. “I love you, Johanna, and I intend to fight for you.”

  During the next few days, the March weather was as unpredictable as Johanna’s emotional seesaw. One day she would awaken to gusty winds, rain dashing against the windows—the next morning sunshine would be drenching her bedroom. Johanna’s mood vacillated from hope to despair. Had Ross acted as he had told her he intended to? Had he gone to see her father? Written him? Life in the Shelby household seemed to go on its usual smooth way, neither parent giving Johanna any indication that Ross had taken the step he had promised.

  Then one late afternoon Johanna’s father came home earlier than usual. He came to the door of the room where Rebecca sat at her quilting frame, beckoned her to follow him into his study, then closed the door.

  Johanna had been in the room with Rebecca, dusting her mother’s collection of porcelain figures. Evidently her father had not seen her. As her parents disappeared, Johanna put the Dresden shepherdess back on the mantelpiece and tiptoed across the hall. She paused briefly at the closed study door, straining to hear some of their conversation. But all she could hear was the steady flow of her father’s deep voice, interrupted occasionally by her mother’s. However, she could not tell anything from the tones of their voices.

  Johanna’s heart beat a staccato. She felt sure she and Ross were under discussion. Had there been a meeting? Had Ross been dismissed, his suit rejected? Had he been humiliated? No, her father was first and foremost a gentleman. He was also a compassionate, understanding man, a gentle father.

  In an agony of uncertainty, Johanna crept past the closed room, up the stairway, and into her bedroom. There she flung herself on her knees and prayed. She tried to pray as she had been taught, a submissive, surrendered kind of prayer, the kind she had been told was most pleasing to God. However, such learned prayers were in conflict with the desperate ones of her heart. Even as she murmured, “If it be your will…,” deep down it was her will she wanted done. Her stubborn, rash, reckless will to have Ross no matter what the cost.

  Johanna was not sure how long she had prayed when there was a brisk knock at her bedroom door. Quickly she scrambled to her feet, just as Cissy poked her prim little face in, saying importantly, “Johanna, Mama and Papa want to see you right away.” She delivered this message with the unspoken implication, You’re in trouble!

  Johanna entered the room with a sinking feeling. Her mother was seated at her quilting frame and did not look up. Her father stood, his back to the door, staring into the fire blazing on the hearth. At her entrance he turned. His expression was unreadable.

  “You wanted to see me, Papa?” Johanna asked in a voice that trembled slightly.

  “Yes. Your mother and I want to talk with you, Johanna. Come in, please, and take a seat.”

  Johanna wasn’t prepa
red for the gentleness in her father’s voice. In fact, she had been half afraid they had discovered her secret meetings with Ross and she was about to receive a stern lecture on deceitfulness and disobedience. She came in and closed the door behind her and walked across the room to the chair he’d indicated.

  Her knees were shaking, so she was glad to sit down. However, she perched on the edge of the chair, clasping her hands tightly together on her lap. Holding her breath, she looked from one to the other of her parents. Her mother continued stitching and did not meet her daughter’s gaze. Johanna then looked toward her father expectantly. There was a tenseness in his posture unlike his usual relaxed attitude when at home.

  “First, I want you to know, Johanna,” he began in a rather lawyerly manner, “that we respect you, admire you even, for your courage to withstand our persuasion—yes, our attempts to influence you from making what we deem an unwise decision. It shows character—”

  Her mother stirred as if in disagreement, and Mr. Shelby glanced over at her. He paused a few seconds before he continued, amending his statement. “At least a determination that, while perhaps misguided, is nevertheless commendable.”

  Johanna braced herself for whatever was forthcoming.

  “As your parents, we feel it our responsibility to guide you in matters that your youth, inexperience, may not give you the wisdom to decide for yourself. When someone is young and in love, clarity is often blurred.” He paused again. “Your mother and I have spent many hours in prayerful discussion of this situation.” He spoke slowly and very deliberately. “We feel that as your parents, we should point out to you that with such a man as Ross Davison, his lifework, which he intends to pursue in a remote, very poor mountain community, will always come first. The needs of the people he serves will always be his priority. Much like that of a dedicated minister of the gospel. A wife and family will always have to take second place, even though that might not be his conscious choice. Do you understand what I mean? ”