Lilac Spring (24 page)

Ignoring her further, he took up the brush again, dipped it into the bucket and began brushing the floor planks. Since he didn’t seem inclined to talk with her, she found a perch upon the gunwale and watched quietly.

He dipped the brush into the bucket again and brushed it over the planks. He shoved away a lock of hair that kept fall
ing over his forehead as he knelt on the wood and continued to paint the boards. After a while he took up a stained rag. With it he began rubbing the area soaked in the linseed oil.

She could see the back of his shirt sticking to him with perspiration. “Silas, why don’t you ever come up to the house anymore? Papa’s not angry with you. He’s grateful for all you’ve done for him down on the yard while he’s been laid up.”

He didn’t answer, and Cherish tried to stifle the annoyance that rose in her. Why didn’t he talk to her?

“Silas?”

He finally looked at her from his kneeling position on the floorboards, his arm resting against his knee, the rag suspended in his hand.

She longed to go over to him and push away that lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead again.

“Do you think it’s a good idea to be here with me so late in the day?”

She stared at him. “What do you mean?”

He turned the rag over in his hand. “Is it something your friend Mr. Townsend would approve of?”

“Warren? What does he have to do with my talking with you?”

His gray eyes scanned her. “Is it customary for the young ladies of Boston or the Continent to speak privately with other men when their suitors are not around?”

Was he…perhaps…a little jealous? “Do you think Warren is my suitor?”

“Isn’t he?” His eyes held hers captive.

She didn’t look away. “He
could
have been.”

He glanced back down. “What do you mean?”

“He asked me to marry him.”

“Isn’t that what you and your father wanted?”

“It’s what Papa wanted, yes.” Glad and relieved that she would finally have the opportunity to talk with him about it, she explained, “It would have made Papa happy. It would have solved a lot of problems.” She met his eyes, which didn’t waver from their steady perusal of her face. “Warren has been very
good to us. I don’t know if you realize this, but…well, Papa has had some financial troubles. With his heart illness, everything just seemed to come to a head.” She sighed. “But thanks to God’s grace, Papa received the help he needed. Warren Townsend is one of those who stepped in just when we needed it most. He just did it as a friend.”

“Or because he loves you.”

She could feel herself coloring.

“He said he didn’t want me to feel…under any obligation of that sort.”

Silas began rubbing the woodwork with the rag again. “What did you tell him?” he asked her, his attention back on the deck boards. Cherish swallowed her disappointment.

“I told him I was deeply honored that he would consider me for his wife, but that I couldn’t marry him.”

He stopped his rubbing. “Why not?”

What could she say? For a moment she wanted to toy with him, because he acted so cool and aloof. But just as quickly the impulse died. What she felt for Silas was too important for coy games. “Because I’m in love with somebody else.”

His eyelids shuttered over his eyes, so she had no idea how the information affected him. “You’d be better off with him.”

“How could I be if I’m not in love with him?”

“Aren’t you?” His hand began to move the rag back and forth again vigorously.

“How can I love him when I love you?”

He stopped the motion and they looked long moments into each other’s eyes. Her heart thudded at her boldness, but she refused to back down. She didn’t understand the barrier between them and wanted to get to the bottom of it.

“Didn’t you hear what I said?” she whispered.

He stood and turned away from her. “I heard you.”

“Silas, what’s happened to us this summer? I used to be able to come and talk to you. Now you act as if—as if either I’m your enemy or I don’t exist!”

When he didn’t reply, but kept looking down at the rag in his hands, she composed her tone. “My father shouldn’t have
behaved the way he did to you. He must learn that I’m a grown woman capable of making my own decisions.”

“Cherish, maybe your father is right. You’re very young. How do you know what you feel is love and not some—some youthful fancy that you’ll grow out of?”

This wasn’t going at all the way she had dreamed. How could he doubt her love?

“You think it’s an infatuation I’m feeling? Do you have any idea how long I’ve loved you?

“Did you think Warren Townsend was my first suitor and that my head would be turned by his attentions? If I behaved indecisively at all it was because I was feeling so desperate with Papa ill and the threat of the bankruptcy hanging over us. Yes, that’s right, bankruptcy! I had no one to turn to. I wanted to tell you, but Papa had treated you so unforgivably and I knew you had opportunities elsewhere.” Her lip trembled, but she kept on, the words rushing out of her.

“But I knew even then, I couldn’t accept Warren’s proposal, even if Papa and I ended up on the street.”

“I’m sorry about the financial situation,” Silas began and hesitated, as if not knowing what else to say.

“I thank the Lord Warren was a good friend, who didn’t expect any recompense for his generous action. He took of his meager savings just to help us out. I’ve promised to repay him someday…somehow.”

Silas had turned away from her again as she described Warren’s generosity. Too late she realized how bad he might feel, not having been able to do the same.

“Oh, Silas, you’ve helped us, too, by coming here every evening after putting in a full day’s work. And after how my father treated you! No one could ask for a better friend.”

“Stop it, Cherish. I did no more than Ezra or Will,” he said sharply, as if her words had offended him somehow. “Listen, I want you to forget your feelings for me. You’re only nineteen. You think they’re real, but you’re young. You’ll meet someone else. Maybe not Warren, but there’ll be someone….”

She stared at him, feeling as if he’d taken her love and trampled all over it. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you? I’ve had my share of suitors—better, more eligible than even Warren Townsend himself!” she said frigidly. “I left a whole string of them across Europe. I knew what Papa’s intentions were for my Grand Tour!

“Oh, I did my duty to Papa while I was there. I went inside every cathedral, viewed every monument, trod every cobbled street, viewed every scenic vista recommended to me.

“I did everything with enthusiasm, with a smile on my face, no matter how forced it felt at times because I was so far away from here—so far away from
you!

“All the while I would think,
I wish Silas were here.
Every scene I viewed, I pictured through your eyes. What would Silas have thought looking up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling? Dining al fresco on the hills of Fiesole? Walking the halls of the Louvre?” She shook her head ruefully. “I wrote you about them, but all I received in return were a few skimpy postcards that I would pore over for weeks until the next one.”

She gave a dry laugh. “I knew what you’d have thought. You might humor me, accompany me all over, but you’d truly only have eyes for the sea. That and your precious boats, not all those man-made things of grandeur.”

Silas threw down the rag and dragged a hand through his hair. “Don’t you see? With everything you’re telling me, you’re only making it more clear that I’m the wrong man for you. I’ve never been anywhere, barely even to school! As you said—I know nothing about anything except boats. Your father is right—”

“Silas, don’t say those things!” She took a step toward him. “Don’t put me on some sort of pedestal. I’m a woman, not some goddess.”

He held a hand out. “Don’t come closer, Cherish. Don’t make it more difficult.”

“What are you so afraid of? Sometimes I think you care more about my father than you do about me. You didn’t even
try to defend yourself the day he saw us together. You acted ashamed. Is that what it is? Are you ashamed of feeling something for me?

“Is your precious boatbuilding more important than us? My father already fired you. What more can he do to you?”

He didn’t say anything. All she could see was how set his jaw was. She wanted to goad him until he told her what he really felt.

“You’re a coward, Silas. Or are you just waiting to leave for greener pastures?” She turned away from him, not wanting him to see the tears that threatened to spill.

“Cherish…” His tone was hesitant, unsure. She didn’t even know if he would say anything more. But finally he spoke again, softly. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t know how to love. Maybe I’m afraid of the kind of love I see in your eyes.”

She turned around slowly. Now, just as she had done, he held out a hand before dropping it in a gesture of futility.

“I can’t live up to your ideals, Cherish. Sometimes I think everything died inside me a long time ago.”

Cherish swallowed, tasting defeat for the first time since she’d come home. She knew the fear in his eyes, in his voice, in his every gesture was genuine. She didn’t understand it, or where it came from, but she felt it as surely as the sturdy oak planks between them.

She knew in that moment she could have faced down her father’s disappointment, could face a life of reduced circumstances, the loss of the shipyard and her privileged position in Haven’s End, but she couldn’t fight the fear she saw in Silas’s eyes. She realized it was probably older than her acquaintance with him. It had probably been with him since before she’d set eyes on him in her father’s boat shop.

She had no weapons against that kind of fear.

“I’m sorry, Silas. I’m so sorry for you.”

As she made her way back down the ramp onto the beach, she didn’t expect him to call her back and he didn’t.

Oh, Father, only You can set Silas free. I’ve tried to break
through, but I can’t. I don’t want to cause him more pain. I can see he feels something for me, but not enough.

The tears ran down her cheeks as she continued walking away from the shipyard and boat shop.

C
herish sat at the breakfast table with her father and Aunt Phoebe.

Her aunt looked over at her brother. “Well, Cousin Penelope has finally answered my letter, but I must say her reply makes up for her tardiness.”

“How is she?” Winslow grunted, taking a forkful of baked beans.

“She’s fine. I wrote her as soon as you had your collapse, asking her advice about a specialist in Boston.”

“What?” Winslow threw down his fork.

“You heard me. If anyone knows about heart specialists it’s Penelope. She’s been suffering from palpitations for decades. She writes here that she’s made an appointment for you with the best doctor in Boston. We’re to stay with her, and afterward she graciously extends her invitation to her place on the lake in New Hampshire for your continued recuperation.”

Tom Winslow sat back, his mouth grim. “You didn’t think to inform me you were writing to Penelope about my condition?”

“Considering what condition you were in, frankly no,” Aunt Phoebe replied. “Pass me the biscuits, would you, Cherish?”

“Certainly.” The news from Penelope surprised Cherish as much as it had her father. “When would Papa have to leave?”

“As soon as possible. The appointment is for…let’s see—” she perused the letter “—the eighteenth, a week from today. We would take the overnight steamer to Boston. Afterward, she suggests taking the train to the White Mountains.”

“She thinks I can pack up and leave everything in a matter of days? Obviously she has no idea about running a business.”

“Papa, you haven’t been spending but an hour or two down at the shipyard,” Cherish reminded him gently. “I think it’s a good idea for you to see a specialist and get some real rest, away from everything here.”

“And who’s going to run things down on the yard?”

“I can see to things. It’s rather slow right now, anyhow,” she ended quietly.

“Nonsense, you’re to go with us!” Without waiting for her reply, Phoebe turned to her brother. “Look at your daughter. She’s paler than a ghost! If you don’t accept Penelope’s invitation for your own sake, then do it for Cherish’s.”

Her father took a long enough look at her as to make Cherish grow uncomfortable. She knew well the shadows under her eyes that refused to go away. He nodded slowly. “Very well, we’ll cable her that we’ll be down in a couple of days.”

The first few days after Cherish and her father had left for Boston seemed to go as usual for Silas. He’d thrown himself into his new work for Captain Phelps. Going over design plans with him kept Silas distracted. He’d had time for only a few words with Winslow before his departure, and Silas had agreed to work at the boat shop the month they would be away. He had agreed to only half days, reserving the other half to work at the captain’s.

It had been a deeply satisfying moment when Silas had been able to hand in his resignation at the cannery. Although he’d come to admire the people working there, he would be happy never to have to handle another raw sardine in his life.

He walked away from the job thanking God for the door that was opening with the captain, but also for the time spent at the
cannery. He realized now that the Lord had taught him things, and he was grateful for the lessons.

On the surface his life seemed complete. He spent his free time in Pastor McDuffie’s company. In his conversations with him, in Bible studies with him and his wife, Silas was beginning to learn that every answer he ever needed was found in the Word.

He realized that as he developed a habit of reading the Bible daily, a love and a hunger for it grew in him. If he skipped a day, he began to miss the spiritual nourishment it gave him.

The most important lesson he was learning was that boatbuilding was not the beginning or end of his life. He had learned that he
could
live without it. He still loved it, and it gave him a sense of accomplishment more than any other task, but his life did not consist of that, but in doing his Father’s will. He continued visiting Tobias, and experienced a new type of joy the evening the Lord gave him an opportunity to tell Tobias about Jesus. As he talked of his own personal experiences, Silas had a sense of accomplishing something with eternal value such as his shipbuilding had never given him.

He was content with the mere fact that Tobias had listened, and he remembered the parable of the sower sowing seed.

Silas avoided thinking of Cherish. He instinctively knew that way lay pain. He hoped he had managed to convince her he was no good for her.

But as the week passed, and the silence and emptiness of the boat shop and office grew oppressive, as he scanned the church congregation for her elegant silhouette and realized a second later she wouldn’t be there, as he missed her standing beside him at choir practice, or seeing her in the village, he began to realize what life would truly be like without her.

When the Whitehall was finished, and the boat shop stood empty, Silas wandered through it, running his hand through the cedar shavings, their pungent scent bringing back images of Cherish working side by side with him.

One early evening, as he was sailing back from a trip to Hatsfield, Silas meditated on the things Pastor McDuffie had been teaching him about the cross of Christ.

The verse about presenting his body a living sacrifice unto God found a parallel command in each of the gospels he’d pored over. Jesus told all his disciples to deny themselves and take up their cross if they wished to follow him.

Pastor McDuffie had tried to get Silas to see the positive side of what on the surface seemed an impossibly demanding requisite.

“Silas, when you come to understand the kingdom of heaven, you’ll come to know that it is we who receive much more than God gains by demanding our very lives. In His Son, we have everything—every desire fulfilled, every need met, complete freedom from our old, weak nature, and on top of everything else, everlasting life. Think on it, Silas! We have all that by God’s grace! His free gift!” he’d said, his eyes shining with the excitement of the merchant who’d sold everything he had to possess that one pearl of value beyond measure.

Now, as Silas contemplated the early-evening sky and sea, a verse he’d read that morning that had puzzled him, but which he hadn’t lingered over, came back to him.
I do not frustrate the grace of God….

Paul had written those words. Paul, as Silas was coming to learn, was the paragon of the Christian faith. How could Paul think such a thought?

Now meditating on those words of Scripture as he gazed out at the horizon, Silas saw that all his efforts to be “good” had been merely frustrating God’s grace, for they had all been ways to try to please God without doing the one thing God demanded: accept His Son’s life, in place of his own. One life for another. The only condition was that the former life must go.

As long as he had kept hold of one shred of the old Silas van der Zee, he could still have a modicum of his own will in the equation.

Cherish’s love for him came to him. He tried to dodge it, but it refused to leave his mind. Was she part of this?

He’d done everything in his power—of his own will—to convince himself what Cherish felt for him wasn’t true love. A childish passion, a young girl’s infatuation, nothing more.

What was he so afraid of in admitting that it was a woman’s love? Cherish had called him a coward. The words hurt now as much as they had then. He’d persuaded himself he was doing the right thing by pushing her away.

Now he admitted she was right. He was a coward. What was he afraid of? The light of truth probed deeper, and he flinched at its relentless invasion.

Why had he avoided thinking of the true reason he was denying himself Cherish’s love, when he knew what he felt for her was love? He’d argued that it was because of his background and because of her father’s prejudice—all external, temporal reasons, he admitted now as he gazed at the flat horizon. The broad expanse of ocean meeting sky brought a sudden clarity to his spirit that he couldn’t hide from.

Had he been frustrating the grace of God by refusing to accept Cherish’s love and give her his own?

Was this refusal rooted in fear of giving God the power to hurt him again? By having a woman to love and open his heart to, Silas was at risk. Because love to him meant pain, he admitted. His heart felt suddenly naked and exposed even as he acknowledged it. Love meant a pain buried for so long, so deeply, he hadn’t even realized he still carried it.

On the wave of that revelation came the knowledge of how vulnerable God had made Himself to man through His Son, Jesus.

Jesus had told His disciples near the end of His sojourn with them, “Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you.” To befriend someone meant knowing him and being known of him. God was allowing man the opportunity to know Him.

McDuffie had shown Silas Paul’s cry: “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection…”

If the apostle Paul had had that driving ambition, the converse must be true: God had a desire to
be
known. What was the Bible about but a message to man? What had Jesus come
to earth for but to reveal the Father to man? Didn’t that mean God wanted man to know Him? God in effect was giving humanity the opportunity to hurt Him.

Once again, Silas received a mental image of Jesus’ agony on the cross. But this time he saw himself pounding one more nail into the flesh of his Savior.

By refusing to acknowledge his love for Cherish and hers for him, Silas was in effect pounding that nail of distrust into his Savior’s hand.

It all came down to trust. Did Silas trust the keeping of his heart to the Lord, Who had paid so high a price for him?

Wasn’t it enough what Christ had already suffered for Silas’s sake? Must Silas crucify his Savior afresh?

I do not frustrate the grace of God….

Silas had to trust in the love that took Jesus to the cross. That God’s love was big enough, true enough, to see him through any eventuality—even perhaps someday losing Cherish if he allowed her to have his heart.

The answer was the cross…Silas must relinquish that last stronghold of fear and see it nailed there.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

God had given Silas His best, the best He had to give, His beloved, His very Self in Jesus. Was that not enough for Silas?

In refusing to love again, Silas was demanding more. He was demanding more than what Jesus had purchased for him on the cross. What more guarantee than Jesus’ death on the cross? As the full import of Silas’s behavior hit him, he knew repentance.

His knees slid onto the floorboards of his boat and tears filled his eyes.

No, Lord, I don’t want to crucify You afresh. Forgive me, Lord, for my unbelief…my anger…my fear…forgive me for frustrating Your grace.