Lilac Spring (15 page)

“No, thank you, dear. You’ve eased my mind greatly with your encouraging words about the Townsends.”

She frowned. “What words?”

“You haven’t married into them
yet.
Let’s hope it won’t be too long, eh?”

He closed his eyes, and she again bit back what she wanted to say. As much as she loved her father and would do anything for him, at the moment she felt he was building an unfair case against her. In his present condition, she couldn’t fight back.

Cherish found only half the crew at work down on the shipyard.

“Well, no one knows rightly what to do. Is the yard closed for now, or does Mr. Winslow want us to keep working?” Ezra sounded unsure and apologetic as he glanced toward the schooner hull behind him. “I’ve tried to direct the men, but everyone’s uncertain of his future.”

“I understand,” she told him with a reassuring smile. “Well, I have good news. Papa has put me in charge until he gets back on his feet.” Before he could express his surprise, she continued in a brisker tone. “Could you please call the men together and I’ll say a few words to them?”

She prayed silently for the necessary authority as she watched Ezra lumber back to the schooner and give the order. A few minutes later the group of weathered, hard-looking men stood around her.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” she began, using her best boarding-school elocution, although she was trembling within. “I want to thank all of you for your patience and dedication in these few days while my father has been bedridden.

“I know there has been a lot of uncertainty, but first of all, I want to let you know that Dr. Turner says there is every chance for a good recovery for Papa, but he must have complete bed rest for a few weeks.

“In the meantime, he has put me in charge of things down here. I shall report to him every day, and he will give me the day’s orders.” She smiled at the assembled men’s serious faces, in which she could read nothing. Before she could begin with the day’s assignment, one of them asked, “What about Silas?”

She swallowed, caught short. Whatever would she say?

“When’s he coming back?”

Another put in, “Where’d he go?”

The others began to mumble. She caught “Why isn’t he put in charge?”

She cleared her throat. “Silas…and my father had a—a disagreement last week, but let me assure you it has all been sorted out now.”

“So, when’s he coming back?” the first man persisted.

She looked down at the toes of her feet. “As soon as possible.” She looked up at them with a bright smile. “In the meantime, let us get to work and make sure everything proceeds on schedule. Ezra, why don’t you show me what you have been doing this morning?” With that she dismissed the gathering and walked with Ezra around the hull taking shape on the stocks.

Later that morning she sat in her father’s office and began opening ledgers and deciphering columns of figures. The more time she spent going over them, the more her disquiet grew. To her eye, it looked as if more was going out than coming in. She didn’t dare speak to her father about it, but she needed to find out for herself just what the monthly expenses of running the shipyard came to.

How she wished Silas were there. Even the men felt lost without him. How much more did she, she wanted to tell them. But she mustn’t show any sign of weakness or let on that anything was wrong.

She bowed her head over the desk and prayed for grace.

I don’t understand any of this. Why did Papa have to fall ill? Why can’t Silas be here to take over in the meantime? Why doesn’t Papa understand how good that would be? Why does he have such a blind spot where Silas is concerned? Why can’t Papa see that Silas and I belong together?

Help me be strong. Oh, please, let me just talk to Silas, visit with him a little while, have his eyes look into mine, his reassuring presence near me.

She must stop that train of thought or she’d break down again. She focused on the ledgers, although the spidery numbers and entries threatened to waver under her gaze. Before she could regain her concentration, a knock sounded on the doorpost.

“Hello, may I come in?”

“Warren!” She looked up in surprise at the handsome man peering into the shop. “What are you doing here?” She quickly rubbed at the edge of her eye with the corner of her handkerchief.

“I came to see you. I just heard about your father.” He entered and came to the desk. “How is he?”

Cherish rose. “He’s better, though he must still keep to his bed a while.”

“Please, don’t get up on my account. I wanted to tell you how sorry I was and to offer any help. Whatever my family or I can do, please let us know.”

She motioned to a chair. “Please, have a seat,” she told him as she retook her own. “Thank you, that’s most generous of you. Everyone has been wonderful. Neighbors have brought food. People have stopped by to visit Papa.”

“How did it happen?”

She looked down at the open ledger and told the same story she’d gotten used to reciting to friends and neighbors, although telling it to Warren made her once again conscious that it wasn’t strictly the truth. What was it that had been taught her in Sunday school? Lying by omission. She still carried around a burden of guilt, although common sense told her she wasn’t responsible.

“Papa has been working too hard. Dr. Turner says he must just slow down,” she ended lamely, her mind picturing again her father’s fury when he’d caught her and Silas.

Warren shook his head. “I tell my father the same thing, but he doesn’t listen.” An awkward silence fell between them, and Cherish had the sense he wanted to say more. Instead, he said, “Annalise sends her regards.”

“Thank you. Tell her…” What? That she hoped to see her soon? That was certainly not true. “Tell her everything will be back to normal soon.” Would it?

“She wanted to come with me today. Perhaps the next time.”

“Yes, that would be lovely. Would you like to stay for dinner?” She glanced at her watch. “Goodness, it’s about that time. I was going to go earlier to help Aunt Phoebe, but the time has flown by this morning.”

“I would love to stay, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble. I’d like to say hello to your father, if you think he can see me.”

“He’d enjoy seeing you.” Cherish’s heart sank. He’d be thrilled to see her come in with Warren.

By the time Warren left, it was midafternoon. All day the
longing in Cherish to see Silas had been growing, and now as she waved goodbye to Warren, the feeling overwhelmed her.

She put on her hat and grabbed up her parasol, calling out to her aunt, “I’m going down to the village. I won’t be long.”

Her aunt looked up from her sewing. “All right. You’ve been shut in here too much these last few days. The sunshine will do you good.”

Cherish fairly flew down the road, feeling as if she’d received a momentary reprieve. The day was a glorious one, the sun bleaching the sky pale blue, the apple blossoms beginning to open their pink buds, the wild strawberries creating a white carpet of blossoms on the grass. She breathed deeply of these sweet scents mixed with the ever-present tang of the sea.

Her thoughts turned to Silas. She had heard from Celia that he was working at the sardine factory! She could scarcely credit the story and hoped it was mere gossip.

Should she visit the factory or take the long walk past the village to old Tobias’s place?

She smiled in greeting at the acquaintances she passed. Her footsteps slowed as she passed by the wharves and neared the last one, where the factory stood. She arrived at the weathered gray, shingled building with its tall, slim brick chimney spewing out white billowing steam. A row of seagulls sat on the ridgepole of the roof. Several men, women and children moved about, each involved in some stage of production.

The reek of fish, which permeated the whole harbor area, intensified as she neared the building. The workers eyed her warily as she approached the building. She lifted her skirts off the slimy wharf boards and opened the door.

The interior was hot and damp from the cooking vats at one end. At the near end stood long tables lined with men and boys, piles of fish in front of them. The workers wore long aprons and wielded knives, scraping the scales off the fish and cutting off their heads. She hesitated, uncertain what to do next, the heat and smell stifling. Before she could take a step, a man separated himself from the others and came toward her.

“What can I do to help you, miss?”

“I—I’m looking for…” What if her information was wrong? “For Mr. Silas van der Zee.”

The man turned his head toward the tables. “Van der Zee!” he bellowed. All eyes turned to her. “You’re wanted.” He jerked his head in Cherish’s direction when Silas looked up from his knife.

Cherish waited, her heart thudding as she met Silas’s eyes. He looked at her a long second before putting down his knife and stepping back from the table.

“You’ve got one minute,” the man told him when he neared them.

Silas nodded his head. As soon as the man had left them, Silas said, “Let’s step outside.”

Glancing down at his slime-coated hands and finding nowhere to wipe them, he gingerly held the door open for her.

Once outside, he dipped his bloody hands into a water-filled barrel and dried them off on a rag hanging on a nail.

He turned his full attention on her. “What’s wrong?” he asked with no other greeting. “Is it your father?”

Cherish swallowed her disappointment. She shouldn’t have come. She hated seeing Silas like this—a factory worker, his time totally at the mercy of someone else.

“Look, you heard the foreman. I don’t have much time,” he said.

“I know. I’m sorry. No, it’s not Papa. He’s all right.”

“What is it, then?” His voice was so unfeeling, it cut Cherish to the quick.

“I—I just wanted to see you.”

He looked away from her. She heard the sharp exhalation of his breath. “Well, you saw me. Are you satisfied?”

The bitterness in his tone was stronger than the revolting stench filling her nostrils.

“No.”
I need you,
she longed to tell him. Her lower lip trembled, as she felt only hostility emanating from every inch of him.

“Well, you’d better get used to it. It’s my new occupation… until I find something better.”

“I’m sorry, Silas. I wish…I wish you could come back to the shipyard.”

Something flickered in his gray eyes. “Did your father send you?”

She couldn’t lie to him. “No. But the shipyard needs you.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Well, I guess it’s going to have to do without me.”

“Silas.”

His gray eyes met hers again. When she said nothing he finally asked, “What?”

“Give me time. I know I can convince Papa to ask you back.”

“I’m thinking of applying to the shipyard up in Calais. They’re still building square-riggers. Maybe they’ll have room for one more carpenter.” She recognized that look of determination in his eyes. Nothing she could say would move him.

He wasn’t going to see the despair his words filled her with. She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Then I’ll just have to find a way to Calais.”

He shook his head. “I think you’ve got to wake up from your dreams and face reality.”

“No, Silas. It’s you who has to face reality.”

“Oh, I’m facing it, all right.”

She could say nothing to that.

“Go home, Cherish. Take care of your father.” His tone sounded utterly weary. She hated the sound of defeat in it.

She began to back away from him. When he made no motion to detain her, she turned with a half wave of her hand. “Goodbye, Silas. I’m sorry to have bothered you.”

“Cherish.”

She turned hopefully.

“Is everything all right?” His tone was the old Silas’s—caring, tender, soft.

No!
she wanted to scream. “Nothing’s been right since you left,” she murmured, sure he couldn’t distinguish her words above the sudden cry of gulls above them.

Silas watched her make her way off the wharf. His body strained to go after her. Then he caught sight of the workers
eyeing him curiously. He glanced down at his filthy wet apron and clenched his fists. What could he offer her?

He thought he’d heard her say nothing had been right since he’d left. What had she meant? Were there problems at the shipyard? Was she all right? Who was overseeing things now?

Telling himself it no longer concerned him, he still stood, uncertainty warring in him as Cherish’s figure grew to a tiny speck on the dusty road leading out of the village.

“Van der Zee! Get to work!”

“Yes, sir,” he muttered, heading back to the building.

The tears that had been threatening the entire time Cherish had seen and talked to Silas came forth once she’d arrived home and gone up to her room. She didn’t bother removing her bonnet. She didn’t care about removing her pretty summer frock. She flung herself across the bed and wept.

After a while she heard someone knock.

“Cherish, that you in there?” Aunt Phoebe asked.

Cherish didn’t answer, but lay with her wet cheek against the pillow.

She heard her aunt open the door and enter. She didn’t look up, even when she felt her aunt stand over her. Finally she felt the bed sink beside her.

“What’s happened, dear?”

“
Everything!
Oh, Aunt Phoebe, why did Papa have to fire Silas? Why can’t I love him? I—I just…just went to—to see him and he acts like he ha-hates me…that it’s all my fault. I feel sometimes that it is. Why can’t Papa accept Silas?” She began to cry anew, hiccuping and stammering out her misery.

Her aunt listened in silence until Cherish finally fell silent. When she sat up enough to grope for her handkerchief, her aunt handed her one from her apron pocket.

Cherish blew her nose and pushed the hair from her face. She removed the hat pins from her hat and took the bonnet from her head.

“Why does Papa have to be so stubborn? I don’t know what he told Silas that afternoon he called for him, but ever since
then Silas acts as if he never wants to see me again. What am I going to do?” she ended, flinging her hat away.