Love's First Bloom (21 page)

“Which I did,” he interrupted. “That’s when I ran into Farrell and argued with him.”

“The alley isn’t on your way back to your cabin. It’s quite out of your way since it sits on the opposite side of the river,” she argued.

He sighed, as much for effect as to garner the strength to lie to a woman who by all rights would run screaming from this cabin if she knew he was a newspaper reporter who planned to reveal to the reading public her identity, her whereabouts, and what role she had played in her late father’s recent legal difficulties. “The truth is that I didn’t run into Farrell in the alley. He was following me.”

“Following you? Why?”

He let out another sigh. “Farrell offered me a job.”

“A job? What sort of job?”

“To use his words, he offered me an ‘unusual opportunity to serve the public,’ ” he said, trusting Ruth would never have the opportunity to verify his version of what had transpired. Once she heard the tale he was about to spin, she would never talk to Farrell when he stopped back in the village en route to New York City, either. Yet, manipulating Ruth by lying to her stoked fears that he was becoming as unscrupulous as Farrell—a fear he nudged away with difficulty.

“Why would he do that?” she argued. “According to what you said, you weren’t even acquainted.”

“While staying at Burkalow’s, he said he heard there was a newcomer who was doing odd jobs around the village. He got my name and searched me out. Apparently, he assumed I’d be interested in earning even more by keeping my ears open and reporting anything I heard about Ruth Livingstone to him when he returned in a few weeks. He also asked me to keep an eye on the stagecoach, checking travelers and such, to see if she passed through here.”

She paled, losing the blush that had earlier stained her cheeks. “Wh-what did you tell him?”

He cringed. “Actually, I’m afraid I lost my temper and jabbed the man in the chest while I told him that I would not return the many kindnesses the villagers have shown to me by being a snitch or a gossipmonger,” he explained, though he had actually been warning the man not to interfere with his work here in the village and to remember Jake’s status as co-owner of the
Galaxy
. “When he told me he would simply find someone else who was ‘less bothered by principles,’ I pretended to have a change of heart to keep him from doing just that. Reverend Haines has the advance Farrell gave me. I trust he’ll put it to good use, although he has no idea where the money came from if you have a mind to ask him when he returns. I didn’t think it would serve any purpose to tell anyone at the picnic, including you and Spinster Wyndam, about Farrell’s offer, other than to set off a round of unnecessary gossip. I hope I can trust you to keep what I’ve told you to yourself.”

She nodded. “Of course. I-I’m sorry I … that is, I-I owe you an apology.”

Jake felt their relationship tip in his favor, and yet he felt more relieved than vindicated. Maybe now he’d succeed in his task and fulfill his journalistic aspirations.

“You were right. I used rash judgment and I closed my mind to the possibility that you would have a reasonable explanation for what I had seen.”

He nodded. “Apology accepted.”

“What are you going to do when Farrell comes back? He’ll expect you to—”

“He’ll expect a report, which I’ll gladly give him: I haven’t seen anyone looking like the sketch he showed me of Ruth Livingstone. And no one here knows anything about Ruth Livingstone, other than what they read in the newspapers. That should satisfy the cad,” he assured her.

“Cad indeed, although I probably shouldn’t waste my breath gossiping about that unprincipled man.”

“I know how much you avoid reading the newspapers, but you’d have an even lower opinion of him if you knew what he’d written in a recent article about Reverend Livingstone’s daughter for the
Galaxy
.” He hoped she would take this bait as easily as she had accepted his version of events. “As much as I am loath to admit it, you were right to think of some reporters as unscrupulous. I’m afraid Farrell fits that description rather well,” he added, determined not to earn that same description for himself.

She stiffened her back and glanced at the crumpled newspapers lying on the table. “What article?”

“The one on the first page of Monday’s
Galaxy
, which is probably unreadable, if it’s one of the pages you crumpled. I wouldn’t bother—”

“It’s no bother,” she insisted as she started smoothing out each of the balls of paper. “I’m rather curious to see what that man wrote.”

He watched her carefully. He had been close enough to her several times now to get a rare glimpse into her soul, where he saw grief and confusion and uncertainty disturb an innocence and purity of heart that challenged all his assumptions about her. At this moment, however, as he watched her gray eyes shift from pale gray to dark orbs of determination, he struggled to gain control of his emotions where this woman was concerned. He only hoped he had not pushed her too far, but he needed to see her reaction to the latest news, which his brother had confirmed in his letter.

He knew the precise moment she found the paper with the article he wanted her to see. Her eyes widened, but he could not see how much they changed in color because of tears she repeatedly had to blink away while she attempted to read. When she finished and set the paper down, her hands were shaking and her face grown far too pale, and he hated the fact that he was responsible, in part, for her distress.

“I’m not certain why information like … like that had to appear in the newspaper when it should offend most people’s sensibilities,” she whispered. “This poor woman’s … this poor woman’s father was proven innocent and now rests in his grave. Mr. Farrell has no right to claim that the public has an interest in what a former friend of Reverend Livingstone has to say, or that the allegations made against his daughter, Ruth, have a single merit of truth to them.” She turned her back to him.

“I happen to agree with you,” he said firmly. In truth, he was convinced that in this particular instance, his brother as editor had stepped well beyond integrity by printing the information. “No decent man ever speaks out against a young woman like that, especially one who claimed to be a close friend of her father’s. And for Farrell to report the man’s claim that he had discovered she had been working at some unnamed brothel with her father’s approval—when neither Rev. Livingstone nor his daughter is available to defend themselves—is the mark of a cad and an opportunist.”

He paused, unable to tell if she was holding silent because she was trying to gather her wits or because she was trying to hold back tears. “Whether or not the story is true becomes irrelevant, because it cannot be verified, in which case the newspapers should never have reported it,” he added. An ache grew in his gut as he questioned not only his brother’s integrity for publishing it but also his own for calling it to her attention.

“I’m quite certain it’s not irrelevant at all. Not to Ruth Livingstone,” she murmured and walked out the door, unaware that she had left him wondering if he could finish the challenging task he had chosen to do for his brother by finding that wooden chest and verifying her identity … or if he should simply pack up his tools and disappear again.

All he knew for certain was that he had lost much more today than he had gained by getting her to trust him again.

Twenty-Two

Ruth felt absolutely nothing. Not anger. Not disappointment. She could not feel enough to know she was numb. She did not recall walking back from Jake’s cabin or crossing the bridge to reach Main Street. She did not remember climbing the back staircase or changing out of her soiled clothes or starting a fire in the sitting room hearth, either.

But if she had not done any or all of those things, she would not be sitting on the floor of the sitting room, next to a steady fire, dressed in her nightclothes, and staring at three newspapers that were finally dry enough to read. Her heart did not race with dreaded anticipation or pound with fear. It simply beat to keep her alive, just as her mind simply rested in this precise moment, with no hurtful memories or ruined dreams.

Over the past two months, she had embraced every possible emotion and risen from the deep pit of grief and sorrow to the heights of pure joy, but she had never felt simply … nothing at all.

Not even the void where her heart or her emotions had once been.

It was as if her spirit had somehow slipped out of her body, leaving her soul troubled by a shattered faith and her human form only a shell that remained to merely function.

Sighing, she chose the
Sun
from the array of newspapers she had spread out to dry earlier that morning. Calmly and objectively, she read every article even remotely connected to her father and to herself. Most of them revisited previous articles. The two that did focus on her father’s former friend’s allegations, which the newspapers described as “stunning” and “shocking,” also used words like “scurrilous” and “salacious” to describe her alleged character and behavior.

“Apparently the reporters for the
Sun
have a penchant for alliteration,” she noted and slowly crumpled each page of the paper into a tight ball before placing all four of them very carefully into the fire. She watched the fire flare as it devoured the balls of paper and waited while the ashes fluttered into the embers like fallen butterflies.

She chose the
Transcript
next and repeated the process to review the contents. She found a sketch of herself, identical to the one Robert Farrell had shown her, framed by one very long article and two shorter ones. She found some satisfaction knowing that Farrell would not find the sketch helpful in finding her and that the latest reports had her living somewhere in Philadelphia. The two short articles had nothing new to offer, except the news that Harrison Steward, her father’s former friend, had left for an extended tour of the South. “Which he financed, no doubt, with his Judas money,” she muttered before she turned her attention to the longest article. She read the last paragraph twice:

Thus, the Prodigal Daughters as an institution no longer exists. Its founder rests in his tomb, while his poor unfortunate victim lies cold in her grave, unable to cry out for total justice. This paper and all of its resources remain committed to be her voice until Ruth Livingstone has been found and the full truth has been revealed.

She folded the four-page newspaper again and again until it was the size of her fist, poked it beneath the bottom log, and watched the wad of paper burn until the ashes were fragile gray wisps that disappeared just like her father’s lifework.

After picking up the
Galaxy
, she decided she had no desire to read Farrell’s article again and let the fire destroy it, just like the others. Sitting quietly, she remained by the fire until only golden embers remained and nothing but silence surrounded her.

And in that stillness, bathed with soft light, her body fairly trembled as she once again felt her spirit grasp the tattered remnants of her faith. She closed her eyes, breathing slowly, breathing peacefully, evaluating her options now that she felt whole again.

She could choose to dwell on the past and let it haunt every moment of every day and be trapped in dark shadows. Or she could take another path, one that would require the courage to recognize the blessings she had been given and walk in the light that beckoned to her in the future.

She folded her hands in prayer and bowed her head. “Heavenly Father, I don’t know where to begin,” she murmured, but when she suddenly thought of last Sunday’s sermon, she latched on to it. “Reverend Haines told us that with faith there is hope and where there is hope, there is love … which means I need to ask you to help me strengthen my faith in you. I give my worries, all my troubles to you, Lord.” Ruth continued to pour her heart out until there was only room for His faith and His hope and His love to dwell within her.

By the time she finished, she expected to feel completely drained and exhausted. Surprisingly, she felt rejuvenated, and headed straight to her bedroom to keep one of her promises. When she returned, she was carrying the stack of articles she had cut from the newspapers.

She added a bit of kindling and a small log to the embers in the hearth. Once the fire was burning strongly again, she tossed in the clippings and waited until every word printed in those articles had joined the others buried in the ashes.

“I’m not living in shadows, and I’m not chasing them any longer. No more newspapers. I’m not reading them anymore. I’m not going to be afraid of what they might print about me or my father, either. I’m following the light. Only His light,” she vowed.

Next, she went into the kitchen to find an oil lamp, which she set onto the kitchen table to light. She had not eaten a thing since breakfast, in part because she had sent her picnic dinner home with Ned, but mainly because she had been too upset after the time she had spent with Jake to feel like eating anything after she left his cabin.

She checked the larder. Even with the food gone that she had taken to the cabin, there was more than enough here for a snack and for all day tomorrow. She chuckled and shook her head. Phanaby had prepared enough food to feed half the village.