Love's First Bloom (2 page)

Toms River, New Jersey

“Please don’t throw your food, Lily,” Ruth cautioned for the third time, gritting her teeth to keep from crying out in frustration. As she wiped a glob of soggy bread from her own forehead with the tip of her apron, she laid her other hand atop the toddler’s hands to keep them still.

Three weeks ago when she first arrived here, Ruth knew her faith would be tested while she waited anxiously for her father’s innocence to be recognized in a court of law.

Hiding the truth of her real identity, and allowing the middle-aged couple who had opened their home to her to believe she was a former prostitute, had been just as hard as she had expected it would be.

She’d had no idea, however, that her greatest challenge would come from twenty-two pounds of pure mischief disguised as the eighteen-month-old toddler sitting directly in front of her. With bright blue eyes and a mop of unruly blond ringlets, the slender toddler was a pretty, delicate little girl who had a mind of her own, a will to match, and one favorite word:
no
.

With her eyes dancing, Lily tugged her hands free and smeared bread soggy with gravy all over her face and through her curls.

“Mercy!” Ruth cried. “You need another bath for certain now.”

Giggling, little Lily clapped her hands, sending drops of gravy in all directions. “Bath! Me. Bath!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Ruth caught a glimpse of the smile on Phanaby Garner’s face and heard the woman catch a giggle of her own before turning back to stir the pot of fish chowder bubbling on the cookstove.

Exceptionally tall and uncommonly thin, the middle-aged woman was still just as patient and good-humored as she had been from the moment she and her husband had welcomed both Ruth and little Lily into their home. The heat from the cookstove today added a flush of pink to her cheeks, and wisps of hair that escaped from the tight bun she wore at the nape of her neck curled around her narrow face to soften her sharp features.

Without a word of complaint, Phanaby set down her spoon and gracefully sidestepped her way around the food Lily had thrown to the floor. After moistening a fresh rag, she carried it back with her, stopped in front of Ruth, and smiled. “There’s a bit of gravy in your hair, too,” she said and gently dabbed at Ruth’s hairline. “There! All gone now,” she pronounced and handed the cloth to Ruth. “I’ll heat up some water for Lily’s bath while you clean up her tray and the floor.”

Truly exhausted, although it was barely midday, Ruth groaned. “I’m so sorry she’s made such a mess again.”

“Bath! Bath!” Lily cried and smacked both palms on the tray of her baby chair, splashing gravy onto the sleeves of the last clean gown Ruth had left.

Phanaby giggled out loud this time and gazed at Lily. “I never knew a baby who loved a bath as much as you do.”

“Or needed one so often, I suspect,” Ruth quipped as she swiped at the mess on her sleeves. Wondering if she would have the energy to keep up with this little mite the rest of the day, she got down on all fours and started wiping up the floor.

“I don’t know about that,” Phanaby argued as she pumped fresh water into a pot. “Jane Canfield used to dunk her three boys in the river several times a day to clean them up when they were about this age, or so she claimed.”

Ruth sat back on her haunches and pushed back a lock of hair that escaped to block her view. “In the river?”

Phanaby carried the pot over to the cookstove. “The river’s warm enough come full summer.”

“Have I met Mrs. Canfield?” Ruth asked, resuming her task.

“No, the Canfields moved west a long time ago. Jane was a sweet woman and a good friend. Mr. Garner enjoyed her husband’s company, too. They had a cabin on the south side of the river at the time, but she brought the boys to visit whenever they came into the village.” She set the pot on the cookstove. “She had the prettiest little flower garden not too far from the cabin on a little finger of land that poked into the river. Her flowers bloomed there from spring until fall. I still look for them each spring, but the garden and the cabin have been empty since they left.”

“Bath! Bath!” Lily cried as she tried to squirm out of her seat, interrupting a flash of Ruth’s own childhood memories. She fondly recalled the tiny flower garden her mother had kept behind their home in the city before death had claimed her—and a series of housekeepers had let the garden go to weeds.

“A bath you shall have, little miss, and then you’ll be off to take a fine nap so we can all eat our dinner in peace. I hope,” Ruth added.

Once she had both Lily and the tray wiped clean, she set the dirtied cloth aside, then hoisted Lily to her hip and covered another yawn. “I’m sorry Lily was so restless again last night,” she said, offering one more apology to the countless ones she had given for the past three weeks for Lily’s behavior.

Phanaby offered Ruth a gentle smile. “It’s no bother. Like I’ve told you, Mr. Garner wouldn’t wake up if a hurricane swept through the house, and I sleep nearly as soundly. She’ll surely take a good nap this afternoon, and you look like you might need a bit of rest today yourself. You couldn’t have gotten much sleep last night, either.”

She lifted Lily out of Ruth’s arms and into her own. “Poor Lily,” she said, rocking from side to side. “She’s probably teething a bit. Did you use the remedy Mr. Garner made for her?”

Ruth nodded. “I rubbed it on her gums whenever she woke up, just like he said, but she still didn’t fall back into a sound sleep for very long.”

“Then she’s probably still not accustomed to sleeping in a trundle bed,” Phanaby murmured before pressing her cheek to the top of the toddler’s head. “Do you miss your crib, sweet baby? I’ll try harder to find one for you,” she crooned as Lily relaxed against her shoulder.

“Please don’t bother yourself. The trundle bed is fine for now,” Ruth offered, hoping and praying that her father’s trial, which had started just last week, would soon end with his acquittal and he would send word that it was safe to bring Lily back to the city.

“It’s no bother. In fact, I’m a bit embarrassed that we didn’t have a crib here for you when you arrived. It’s just that … well, we thought Lily was a bit older than she is,” she murmured as she stirred the chowder and Lily played with the collar of her gown. She glanced over her shoulder to look at Ruth. “You’re quite a bit younger, too,” she said, without a glimmer of judgment in her voice.

Blushing, Ruth dropped her gaze. With every bone and muscle in her body yearning for a good night’s sleep, Ruth felt like ninety-two instead of twenty-two, yet the love and understanding in the woman’s eyes was so intense, she nearly forgot how physically tired she was.

Instead, her spirit ached and tugged at her heartstrings, yet again, for deceiving this generous, loving woman and her husband and not telling them the truth: Ruth had not been a fallen angel, selling her body to anyone with enough coins while living at Mrs. Browers’s brothel. A brothel where no one, even Mrs. Browers, knew she’d had a child. And she had not paid another woman to take Lily into her home and care for her for the past year and a half.

She was Ruth, Rev. Livingstone’s daughter, a woman of virtue and faith who longed for the life she had left behind and the father she dearly loved.

“You’re a good woman, Ruth, and you can be a good mother to Lily,” Phanaby encouraged. “I know it’s been hard learning how to care for her yourself,” she said, reminding Ruth that she knew about the arrangements under which she and this little one had allegedly lived, without judging her for it. “It’ll get easier once the two of you really get to know one another. Just trust yourself. Trust in God and know that both Mr. Garner and I are here to help you, too, so you won’t ever have to be separated from each other again.”

“I-I know … and I thank you both. For … for everything,” she managed, humbled by the example of faith and generosity this woman and her husband had set before her.

Phanaby’s eyes misted. “You’re very, very welcome,” she managed before turning away. “This water still needs a good bit of time to warm. I’ll keep an eye on this little cherub for you. While I do, why don’t you go downstairs to the apothecary and remind Mr. Garner that dinner will be ready in about half an hour. Otherwise he’s likely to leave to deliver some compound or another, especially now that the weather has turned fair again. By now, I’m sure you’ve noticed how oblivious he can be to the hour when he’s working.”

Ruth smiled. Mr. Garner was so devoted to his customers, he might seem almost possessed by his work at times, but his girth alone provided ample evidence that he was never too devoted or too preoccupied to forget to be at the table at mealtime. “Of course. I’ll be right back. By then the water should be warm enough that I can give Lily her bath and get her settled down before dinner.”

Lily turned and stretched toward the sink. “Bath! Bath!”

Ruth patted Lily’s back. “Yes, baby. As soon as I get back,” she promised and headed for the stairs at the end of the hallway that led to the back of the family’s living quarters above the apothecary. She paused and smiled as she looked out the window at the top of the enclosed staircase that led down to the first floor.

Finally, after ten long, gray days, the relentless rain that had pelted the village had stopped. The sun, sitting bright and high in a cloudless blue sky, reflected off the bows of several packet ships sitting heavy in the river, waiting to be unloaded at the docks several blocks away.

She had no interest in any of the goods from the city that would soon appear in the various shops in the village, even if she had any coin to spend. She was only interested in one thing: news about her father’s trial, which had dominated the city newspapers that were usually delivered twice a week to the village.

After ten days without any shipments arriving at all, every single copy of those newspapers would be scooped up as soon as they arrived. Even here, readers were obsessed with the scandalous, even licentious details of the life of Rosalie Peale and the controversial minister who was on trial for her murder.

Hopeful that Mr. Garner would get copies of the newspapers at some point today, Ruth opened the door to the staircase, looked down at her apron and gown, and sighed. She’d had no idea that taking care of a young child would take such a toll on her clothing, and she sorely needed to launder the few clothes she had managed to bring with her.

The steps were uncommonly steep, and after she picked up her skirts with one hand, she held tight to the railing with the other. She descended very, very slowly, and hoped that the time she had spent on her knees praying would help to stem the growing fear within her that her father would be wrongly convicted.

Three

Ruth opened the door at the bottom of the staircase and stepped into the storeroom. She took a deep breath of the warm, fragrant air, but ended up in a bit of a coughing fit. She remembered too late that unlike the pristine shop itself, the storeroom was a magnet for dust and disorder.

The paned window next to the rear door was covered with grit and grime, which ten days of rain had failed to remove, allowing only dim light to enter the room. Baskets filled with dried flowers, roots, and herbs used as remedies or compounded into healing tonics lined a number of rickety shelves. Even the overhead beams were laden with drying bunches of healing herbs, and she crouched to avoid disturbing them.

Since arriving here, Ruth had only helped Phanaby with housekeeping tasks upstairs, but as she neared the curtain that separated the storeroom from the shop itself, she made a mental note to offer to help Mr. Garner tidy up the storeroom as one way to repay him for his kindnesses, too.

Once she reached the curtain in the doorway, she stopped and cocked her head. Relieved that she did not hear any voices, meaning Mr. Garner was not busy with a customer, she parted the curtain and peeked into the apothecary itself.

Mr. Garner, however, was not there. She discovered him standing outside on a ladder, apparently so intent on washing the paned window next to the front door that he did not even see that she was waving to him to get his attention.

Unlike his wife, Elias Garner was average in height, although his weight might be appropriate for a much larger man. The dull brown hair on top of his head was rather unremarkable, but the mustache he took such pains to groom was quite streaked with gray and red hair.

She had come to know him as a gentle, quiet man, a man devoted to his God and his faith, as well as his wife and his customers. Elias was but a single example of the large network of believers her father had developed to help those fallen angels who sought to reclaim their faith. Humbled again by the generosity of the Garners, she swallowed hard. She moved closer to the window to capture Mr. Garner’s attention.

When he finally smiled and waved back, he pointed to the one pane on the window that was still dirty and held up one finger to indicate he would be back inside as soon as he finished.

Smiling a reply, she took advantage of this unusual opportunity to be in the apothecary by herself and looked around. Unlike the storeroom, the shop itself was a vision of order and cleanliness, the scent of the room more medicinal than herbal. Four substantial wooden shelves, separated in several places by vertical pieces of wood to create the look of bookcases that stood side by side, ran horizontally along the wall to her left. In front of the shelves, a counter widened as it reached the rear of the shop to create a workbench where several mortars and pestles of different sizes stood next to a small brown parcel.