For Time and Eternity (5 page)

“Can you read it again?” I’d already forgotten what it said.

There was none of her earlier gentleness left as she forced the words through her ever-narrowing lips. “‘And Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him, and did let none of his words fall to the ground.’”

“Oh,” I said, trying not to smile at the irony. “I suppose it means that I need to know exactly what the Bible says.”

Mama accepted this answer and posed the next question, about how this verse could help me be a better woman, but for that, I had no ready answer. I simply shrugged and said I figured it meant the same thing, being a woman or not.

“No.” She closed the Bible and my journal, tying the ribbon to hold the pages closed. I can still hear the silk snagging against the roughness of her hands. “It’s different for women because you will someday be the mother of children. And it will be your job to know the Word of the Lord so you can teach it to them.”

I felt myself blushing again. For the second time in as many days, somebody was talking about children.

“What about fathers? Don’t they have just as much responsibility?”

“Yes. And a good man will. Like your father.”

“He doesn’t really talk to me.”

A bit of compassion hinted at the corner of Mama’s eyes. “He does the best he can, Camilla. He’s not an expressive man.”

I thought about Nathan, the broadness of his smile, the warmth of his words. “Was he ever?”

“Maybe,” she said. “A little. Hard work takes its toll. Sometimes the person you marry isn’t the same person you end up being married to.”

We both chuckled and, by an unspoken agreement, picked up our tea and sipped.

“Did you love him instantly?” The details of my parents’ courtship had never been a topic of conversation.

She nodded. “Almost. He was so handsome. And godly. That was important to me. He would lead the church in prayer, and I felt like he was lifting all of us up.”

My tea was cool, but I still took small sips. “And did he love you?”

Something like a shadow passed across her face as she stared into her cup. “It’s harder for men, you know. To express their feelings. It takes time. Why all these questions all of a sudden?”

“No reason.” I fidgeted in my seat, untucking my feet. They were beginning to tingle, and I worried they might not carry me back upstairs. The shadow was back on Mama’s face, only now it seemed there to stay as she hardened right before my eyes.

“Are you seeing a boy?”

“No, Mama. Of course not.”

“Because you know your papa and I wouldn’t approve—”

“Trust me, Mama. None of the boys in this town want anything to do with me.”

“They better not, nor you with them. You’re only fifteen—”

“How old were you when you met Papa?”

I knew the answer to this, but it was worth it to see her have to take a deep breath before answering me.

“Sixteen. But things were different then.”

I wanted to say that it couldn’t be so different. After all, she just said that the world was much the same as it had been since Samuel was a boy. What could have changed so much in her short life? But I didn’t, because I knew. I knew I’d lied and that there was a boy and I liked him very much. Right now, though, he was a treasure to ponder in my own heart. I knew the minute I opened up and showed him off, he’d tarnish in the light.

* * *

Later that night I found myself in bed, tossing and turning after a day spent dozing. I listened to my afternoon conversation with Mama over and over in my head. Sometimes, I imagined it ended differently. I heard myself telling her that, yes, I met the most handsome boy in the world and he touched my face. She’d set down her tea and say, with actual tears in her eyes, that she knew his heart must be pure if he loved a girl like me. But of course, none of that was said at all. It ended when Papa stomped into the kitchen hollering for the whetstone so he could sharpen a tool in the barn. Mama jumped up to find it and didn’t seem to think of me again until she brought up my tray for supper.

The house at night was dark and silent and seemed especially so from my room. Mama and Papa slept downstairs, in the house’s original bedroom. I’d been sleeping in what used to be an attic storeroom ever since I grew too big for the trundle under my parent’s bed. Papa had built a wall straight down the middle, and there was a little door in my room leading straight across to what was still used for storage. The ceiling was high at that end, but sloped down to almost nothing on the other. When I was little, I used to pretend I was a giant, barely able to fit beneath the roof.

When the attic became my room, Papa had to build a staircase to it too. There was no hallway or landing up here—just a ladder straight up from the kitchen through my floor. Before that, you got into the attic by climbing a set of stairs outside, built straight against the outer wall of the house and leading up to a door. Papa had framed out that door and made it into a window, and tonight I was especially glad because the moon was full and my room filled with light.

Then I saw the shadow. Thankfully, I was too terrified to scream.

“Camilla?” His voice was muffled by the glass, but still unmistakable. I didn’t know what time it was, but surely it was late, and I prayed that my parents were lost to sound sleep below. He rapped lightly on the glass, and I swung my legs out of bed. Mindless of the fact that I wore nothing more than a white cotton gown, I ran the two steps to the window and, after a quick glance to be sure my father’s head wasn’t about to emerge through the floor, placed my finger to my lips, imploring him to be quiet.

“Open the window.” He spoke as much with his hands as with words, and with the threat that he might make even more noise if I failed to obey, I opened the latch and slid the pane up.

“Are you trying to get me killed?”

“I was worried when I didn’t see you this morning. Thank God you’re all right.”

“I’m not all right.” I summoned a cough. “I’m sick.”

“See?” He leaned against the window frame, making himself at home. “I said you were catching a cold.”

I suppressed a smile. “What do you want?”

“I want you to tell me I was right about you being sick.”

“You were right.” It seemed best to agree.

“I really did worry that you’d gotten into some trouble with your father. I’d feel terrible if he’d been in any way violent with you.”

“My father—” I lowered my voice—“is not violent.”

“Harsh, then. I didn’t want you punished for something I did.”

“I haven’t been. Unless being sick is punishment.”

He smiled, and it rivaled the moonlight. I was so happy he’d chosen tonight to visit. Last night I would have slept right through, no matter how he called my name. Seeing him there, though, brought to mind what Mama’d said about the Mormons, and it put a touch of fear in me. The same wrestling fear I had when I first saw him. Excitement all tangled up with terror and doubt, fighting to see which one would win the match. Right now Nathan and I were just standing up there together, him on my top step, and me inside. Nothing but moonlight between us.

“Can I see you tomorrow, Camilla?”

Terror won. “No. My parents would never let me. I don’t think I should see you at all.”

“Well, don’t worry. Pretty soon you won’t have to. We’ll be gone in the next few days, but we’re having a sort of celebration tomorrow, and I thought you’d like to come.”

My mind lingered on one word.
Gone.
“Why would you want me there?”

“We’ve been slaughtering chickens all day. . . .”

“What?”

His smile returned. “I thought that would get your attention. We can’t travel with them, so we’ve spent the day plucking and stewing, and what do you think we used for flavoring? The wild onions from your very field. The least you should do is come have a taste.”

“I can’t.” Although my own giggle threatened to betray my resolve. “My parents would never let me.”

“Don’t tell them.” His eyebrows did a dance that brought my laughter to the surface. Like it would be just that simple. “You’re sick. Tell them you’re coming upstairs to rest. Then straight out this window and down the stairs. Your room was designed for escape.”

“Like you’re going to do right now.” I reached for the sill, fully intending to close the window, but he reached his hands through, grabbing just the tiniest pinch of my gown. Nowhere near my body, but still a pinpoint of my flesh burned.

“I’ll be waiting for you. Where the path turns.”

“I can’t.”

“Listen.” He strengthened his grip, holding a handful of the cotton fabric. I lowered my hands and he let go of my gown, gripping my wrist instead. Not hard. I could break away if I wanted to. But I listened. “You don’t know how lucky you are. Growing up with a home and a family. I never had that. I lived in an orphanage until I was turned out onto the street. And these people—yes, they’re my family. They love me and I love them and we take care of each other. But I don’t have anybody of my own. I don’t have anybody who belongs to me.”

“I don’t belong to you.” Somehow, I found the breath to say it.

“Really? Because I feel, very strongly, that you might. I’ve known it since the minute I saw you, and Heavenly Father confirmed it after the first time we spoke.”

“When you stole from me?”

“I’m sorry. That was wrong. But I felt, even then, that what was yours, was mine.”

“But that was my father’s.”

“Stop it!” His grip tightened, then released. “I would love to have just one conversation with you where you didn’t mention your father. Or your mother. Or the fact that you can’t meet me tomorrow.”

“Shh!” I went and stood by the square-cut hole in my bedroom floor and listened. No stirring. When I returned to the window, he was once again leaning comfortably on his elbows, his head on my side of the glass. Even given this proximity, I kept my voice below a whisper. “You have to go.”

He cupped a hand to his ear and mouthed, “What?”

I took a step closer, pointing. “Get out. Now.”

The next thing I knew his hand captured mine, and if the touch of our flesh wasn’t enough, he brought it to his lips, grazing my knuckles across them, then turned my hand and opened it, pressing my palm against his mouth. And then my wrist. I knew my pulse pounded; I could hear my heart in my ears. Without any effort on his part, I’d been drawn to the window, stooped down until mere inches separated our faces. When I was that close, he said, “Come to me tomorrow.”

I felt his words rather than heard them, and my own reply wasn’t much more than a whimper.

“I’ll be waiting where the path turns,” he said, releasing me at last. “I’ll be there at dawn. I’ll stay there all day.”

And then he left. I kept the window open, feeling the night breeze cooling my body through the folds of my gown. Then I closed it and watched, my face against the glass, as he made his way through the yard, escorted to the rock wall by our faithful Bonnie-Belle. I remember thinking how odd it was that she didn’t bark. Not a peep. And she’s usually so vigilant about strangers. Apparently she loved Nathan Fox too.

Chapter 5

I slept very little during the remaining hours of the night, but the sleep I had was deep. The kind Mama called the sleep of the dead. And when I did wake up, I felt like my life had turned over on itself during my absence. I spent the first few minutes of wakefulness staring at my ceiling, trying to sort out what was real and what had been a dream. Never had I woken to such exciting reality.

My fingers fumbled with buttons and ties as I dressed myself. The trembling was something new. I stopped and squeezed my eyes tight, saying, “Don’t think of him. Don’t think of him,” right out loud into the empty room, but it didn’t help. I couldn’t bring myself to brush and braid my hair, so I left it long and loose, figuring I’d throw myself on Mama’s mercy and get her to do it for me after breakfast. That is, if I could will myself to eat.

Turned out for all my worrying, I’d slept too late to get breakfast at all, and Mama in all her mercy hadn’t tried to rouse me. I came downstairs to a single plate covered with a blue-checked towel sitting in the middle of the table. Underneath it was a cold biscuit.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” Mama ran a damp cloth around the inside of the wash bin after dumping the dishwater out the back door. “I figured it was best to let you rest, and now there’s no time to cook you anything else.”

“I’m fine,” I said, feeling a little hungry after all.

Papa appeared in our doorway, wearing his second-best shirt, his hat gripped in his hand. “Ruth? I’ve got the team hitched up.”

“Just one minute, Arlen.” Mama set the washbasin on its shelf and reached behind to untie her apron. “Let me run a comb through my hair.”

“Is she going?” He gestured toward me with his hat.

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Mama turned to me, adjusting the sleeves that had been rolled to her elbow. “You still don’t look well, dear. Do you feel up to going to the market?”

I’d forgotten that today was market day—a convention our town observed the first Saturday of every month. It wasn’t an officially sanctioned event, more like a tradition struck among the local farmers and craftsmen. A day they all gathered to trade goods and services with each other, occasionally accompanied by a community picnic lunch during fair-weather seasons. I usually enjoyed the day, even if I spent most of it at my parents’ side or running from one wagon to another trading cheese for a dozen jars of pickled carrots or gathering bids on one of Papa’s spring calves. But on this morning I could think only of my late-night visit and Nathan’s invitation. When Mama asked if my health would allow me to spend an afternoon outside of the house, only one answer came out of my mouth.

“No,” I said, conjuring up my weakest voice. “Not today.”

“You do look pale.” Mama stopped on her way to her bedroom and laid the back of her fingers against my brow. “No fever, though.”

“She looks well enough to me,” Papa said gruffly.

“Sometimes a girl likes to have a day of leisure,” Mama said. “To recover.”

She left me alone with Papa, and while I felt the hint of a cough at the top of my throat, I suppressed it, for fear it would sound too affected.

“Better get yourself upstairs, then,” Papa said. “Don’t want to hear about you being too sick to go to church tomorrow.”

“Yes, sir. Let me just say good-bye to Mama first.”

I went into their room and there she was, standing in front of the oval mirror hanging on one wall. She’d tidied her hair with a damp comb and was tying a pretty blue ribbon at her throat.

“Now, you just relax today,” she said, giving the loop a decisive tug. “If you feel like it, you can catch up on your studies. But if not, there’s always next week.”

The lie was so big in my throat I couldn’t speak.

“And Miss Joanna says she’ll have about a dozen straw bonnets. Plain, of course, but we can trim them up at home. Would you like one?”

I nodded and managed to say that a new bonnet would be nice this summer before Papa’s voice called from the yard.

Mama grasped my shoulders and, in a gesture usually reserved for very special occasions, kissed my cheek. Then, even more uncharacteristically, her lips moved to my forehead and lingered.

“No, no fever.” She held me at arm’s length, anchoring me not with her grip, but with the intensity of her pale blue eyes. “Camilla, is there something you want to tell me?”

I gave a brief shake of my head, but when she seemed still unsatisfied, I told her I was feeling a little weak. “Perhaps I should eat something?”

“Well, there’s not much in the kitchen, but I could—”

“Ruth!” Papa’s voice now boomed, and I suspect every woman named Ruth in the county took a step away from her stove and went to the door to see what beast summoned her.

“I’ll be fine, Mama.” I stepped into her embrace, wrapping my arms around her thickening waist and laying my head against her bosom. She smelled of butter and flour and barnyard and hay. She must have been up early that morning, helping Papa with the milking, doing my chores as I slept. I squeezed her tight until Papa bellowed once again. Then I let her go.

The minute the wagon disappeared from the yard, all thoughts of venturing out to meet Nathan vanished as my guilty conscience took over my planning for the day. I reached under the blue-checked towel and grabbed the cold biscuit, nibbling on it as I made my way into the parlor. I was still a day behind on my readings (a point Papa had taken pains to make the night before at dinner), so I curled up on the sofa with our Bible and opened to the fourth chapter of Samuel. I struggled through the verses. Wars and great shouts. “Woe unto us . . .” and “Fear not; for thou hast . . .” How different it was to read the Scriptures alone, without my mother at my side to answer questions. So many names—Philistines and Egyptians, Ebenezer, Hophni, and Phinehas. The words swam around meaninglessly, and I had no illness on which to blame my confusion. I considered abandoning my journal, but that would only mean having to read the chapter again under my father’s watchful eye, so I took another bite of biscuit and doubled over the page as the crumbs dissolved, salty, on my tongue. Finally, in frustration, I settled on the last verse of the chapter because it was the shortest. Mama would have scolded me, but she wasn’t there, and by the time she knew, it would be too late to change it.

When I opened my journal to record the verse, I saw for the first time my mother’s labored penmanship from the day before. Her letters had an odd squareness to them, nothing like the fluid script Mr. Teague insisted his students produce. In fact, if you didn’t know, you might be confused as to which verses were written by the mother and which by the child.

I turned over the page so as not to be distracted and wrote:

And she said, The glory is departed from Israel: for the ark of God is taken. 1 Samuel 4:22.

I knew I would face the two questions, so I prepared my answers, speaking them aloud into the empty parlor.

“This makes me a better Christian because it reminds me that I must remain close to God. It makes me a better woman because I should give my children meaningful names.”

With no one to tell me differently, I deemed my answers perfectly adequate and closed my journal and put the Bible back on its little table. Then, perhaps feeling guilty about my careless study, I clutched my journal close to me and bowed my head.

“Heavenly Father . . . ,” I began, but no other words would come. So I just sat, very quiet and very still, waiting.

Lord,
I prayed, the words coming from within,
forgive me if I seem disrespectful of your Word. It’s difficult sometimes for me to understand just what you’re trying to say. I get lost in the stories, and sometimes they all sound alike. And the names are strange. And it just seems so . . .

I opened my eyes and stopped myself from calling the Word of the Lord
dull
.

“Thank you for letting me feel better. For my healing.” And then again, silence. Because I hardly knew how to pray about what was most pressing on my heart. Should I ask God to keep Nathan away? Should I pray for Nathan to come to my door so I could tell him to go away? In the end it seemed best not to pray about Nathan at all. I asked the Lord to give Mama and Papa a good day at the market before saying amen and taking my journal upstairs.

I spent the next half hour doing anything I could to keep myself occupied. I brushed and brushed and brushed my hair until it crackled in the air; then I plaited it into two thick braids, which I wrapped around my head and secured with pins pilfered from Mama’s little glass jar. A much more grown-up style than I usually wore, but one easily taken down the minute Papa’s wagon turned in to our yard. I pulled off my shoes and opened my mother’s armoire, where I found her treasured pair of silk brocade slippers. I truly believed they were princess shoes, and Mama agreed, as long as I understood the princess who wore them was just a farmer’s daughter at a city hall Christmas dance. Slipping them on, I wriggled my toes in the luxury of them, then took a turn around the room with a graceful, gliding step. I hadn’t done this since I was a very small child—and it had been just as long since I’d seen Mama herself wear them. Impractical, she said, living on a farm. And I had to agree, although it did give me the slightest thrill to see how well they fit my feet.

I prowled through the kitchen looking for something to eat. True to Mama’s prediction, however, there was little. Nothing, really, save a few strips of dried beef and a few soft potatoes at the bottom of the bin. Hopefully Mama and Papa were negotiating with some farmers right now for some of the fruits of their gardens. Certainly something good could be harvested this time of year. Something that didn’t come from a cow or a pickling jar or even one of those new tin cans.

The little round clock ticked on its shelf, and I’d been home alone for nearly an hour. It felt like an eternity. I never remembered a day in my life so full of emptiness. And that was the very thought tumbling through my head as I climbed the stairs to my room that morning. Empty, empty as my feet moved silently across the floor. To the window. Of course I couldn’t see clear to the place where the path turned, but I could see as far as my father’s wall.

And there he was.

I wanted to believe I wasn’t hoping he’d be there, but that was long before I’d learned to lie to myself. In an instant he’d seen me, and even from this distance his smile filled all the corners of that empty house. I could have leaped through the window—even without the outer stairs to carry me down. His eyes would hold me, reaching across the yard and safely guarding me until my feet touched the ground. But though I was wearing my mother’s princess slippers, this, after all, was no fairy tale. In an instant I jumped through the hole in my floor, ran to my parents’ room, and found my own shoes where I’d left them carelessly by the bed. With steadier fingers than I’d had just a short time ago, I laced my own brown, sensible leather boots and tucked Mama’s slippers safely away.

Any moment, I thought I’d hear a knock at the door, but none came. I paused briefly at the mirror and considered my reflection. I couldn’t tell if I looked more or less like a little girl with my braids pinned up. Surely my eyes looked bigger and wider—like my face was being pulled—and my neck seemed long and elegant. I thought about taking the style down, lest Nathan think I pinned my hair up just for him, but even as my fingers hovered over a pin, I stopped.

“This isn’t me,” I said to the glass, and the image inside confirmed it.

Forcing myself to breathe, I took slow, measured steps to the front door and waited. Wanting him to knock. Hoping to be called on—like a beautiful girl with an eager beau. Finally, though, I simply opened it, only to find our porch empty. And our yard empty. Nothing but his voice in the distance, calling from the uncertain pile of stones.

“Come on! Let’s go meet my family!”

And I ran.

* * *

He held my hand the entire way, chattering the whole time about the wonders I was about to see. The friendliness of the people, the richness of the fellowship, the commitment everybody had to creating this new city.

“Because that’s what we’re doing, you know.” Breathless, he carted me along. Sometimes beside him, until my feet couldn’t keep up with his pace. Then I’d be dragged behind. He said nothing about my hair, asked nothing about my health, and cared nothing that I was with him under deceptive circumstances. “There’s nothing here—nothing in your life that can compare to it. These people saved me, Camilla. I can’t tell you how empty my life was before I met them.”

I wanted to tell him I didn’t need my life changed, that I was just going along to taste the chicken stew, but as I tripped along that narrow path, I couldn’t help feeling I was on some sort of an adventure, too.

My father’s property bordered a brushy forest, nearly half a mile’s worth, separating us from the river. Nathan pulled me right through it, taking me along what barely constituted a path. At one step I was swallowed in green, and the next I walked into a wide clearing, like something out of a story. Fire pits dotted the cleared land, with fallen logs stationed around them as makeshift parlor furniture. Small, neat tents made a semicircle on either side, and if we kept walking straight, we’d come to a place where trees had been cut down to make a wide opening out to the river.