Hearts Awakening, page 1
DELIA PARR
Hearts Awakening
Copyright © 2010
Mary Lechleidner
Cover design by John Hamilton Design
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Printed in the United States of America
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parr, Delia.
Hearts Awakening / Delia Parr.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7642-0670-2 (pbk.)
1. Widows—Fiction. 2. Housekeepers—Fiction. 3. Pennsylvania—History— 18th century—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3566.A7527H435 20010
813'.54—dc22
2009040893
* * *
Dedicated to my turtle-lover sister,
Carol Beth,
my story editor, beach buddy, friend,
and inspiration, as well as a loving wife
and mother and caring hospice nurse who helps
so many as they prepare to go home.
You are, dear sister,
one of His finest gifts to so many
people who are blessed to be
able to love you back.
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Author’s Note
One
AUGUST 1840
HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
While other women her age were busy preparing a hearty breakfast for their families in snug, warm homes that crowded the city or dotted the outlying farms, Elvira Kilmer was hurrying down an unfamiliar roadway, hugging the woods along the eastern shoreline of Dillon’s Island to meet a total stranger.
The air was heavy with the sweet scent of apples that grew in the orchards filling the interior of the island. But it was not enough to ease the heavy resentment that beat in Ellie’s heart, and her thin, well-mended cape did little more to ward off the uncommon nip in the air than her tattered faith could warm the chill in her spirit.
Yawning, she caught a brief glimpse of the Susquehanna River through a break in the trees that lined either side of the roadway and wondered what it would be like to simply drift away to a place where she was the only one who had control over her life.
Ellie snorted, tugged her cape tighter, and trudged forward. She had just taken a couple of sidesteps to avoid a deep ridge in the roadway when a raccoon darted out of the woods right in front of her. Startled, she swirled about, tripped over her own skirts, and toppled into the brush, snagging her cape on a low branch in the process.
Thankfully, she found the wherewithal to grab on to a small sapling to keep from pitching forward and landing flat on her face. Swaying a bit, she gasped for air and wondered if her heart would burst before it stopped pounding in her ears.
When she finally caught her breath, she glanced down and saw that she had landed smack in the middle of a patch of blackberries. Relief that the thorns on the brambles had not pierced through her cape and skirts was short-lived, however, once she got back to her feet to see what damage she had done to her garments.
Her gloves, which had kept her hands from being scraped, were sticky with tree sap, and the mends she had made just the other day had torn open again, which meant the gloves were now destined for the trash pit. To make matters worse, there was a wide tear in her cape, just above the hem, and she groaned out loud. She could mend that tear easily enough, but the blackberry stains on her cape and her gray skirts would be almost impossible to remove.
Ellie yanked off her gloves and stuffed them into her pocket before easing back to the roadway. “I needed to ruin my cape and my work gown and my gloves? Now? When I’m due at Mr. Smith’s? I look like a . . . a ragamuffin!”
Chest heaving, she swiped at her tears and stomped both of her work boots free of dirt before resuming her journey. “I thought you were going to help me, Lord. I’ve trusted in you all my life, yet no matter how hard I’ve prayed or how hard I’ve tried to live by your Word, I always end up with . . . with nothing but disappointment,” she cried, giving voice to the despair that seemed to have found a permanent home in her spirit.
Apparently frightened by her cry, a trio of small birds burst out of a nearby tree and soared up toward the clouds. She paused to watch them, flying side by side, until they disappeared from view. And, despite the frustration and uncertainty that welled within, she prayed she might one day fully embrace His promise to protect all of His creations, even a trembling follower as she had become.
Ellie continued on her way and spied the rear of the small farmhouse at the southern end of the island, where a single wisp of smoke curled up from a chimney on the near side of the building. She approached the house with the hope that Jackson Smith would be so grateful she had arrived he would not be put off by her unkempt appearance and send her right back to the city—where she would no doubt receive another less-than-gracious welcome.
When she reached the kitchen door at the back of the house, she swallowed hard and paused to straighten the folds on her cape to try to hide the blackberry stains, but there were so many she soon gave up. After smoothing her hair one last time, she took a deep breath for courage and knocked on the kitchen door. And then again. She was about to knock a third time but dropped her hand when she finally heard the sound of heavy footsteps approaching the door.
Her mouth went dry, but she kept her back straight and her shoulders square as she planted a smile on her face.
When the door finally swung open, she took a step back and stared up at the very attractive man standing there. To her surprise, he appeared to be only in his late twenties—a good three or four years her junior—but as she suspected, he wore the weathered tan of a man who carved his way through life by working outdoors in the orchards that covered the tiny island. His summer-bleached brown hair was cropped short, and the dark blue eyes staring back at her beneath heavy brows were fierce with pride and determination. The heavy crease across his brow, however, testified to his weariness, if not the sorrow of losing his wife scarcely six months ago.
“Mr. Smith? I’m Elvira Kilmer. I believe you were told to expect me this morning,” she said in a clear, steady voice, though her heart pounded against the wall of her chest. Either he would allow her inside or he would send her straight back to the city, where she would no doubt end up homeless and penniless by the time the sun set.
Again.
Two
Relief, rather than contempt, flashed through Jackson Smith’s gaze, and he stepped back to allow her to enter. “Please come in.”
Nearly weak with relief herself, Ellie swallowed hard and gratefully entered the dimly lit kitchen, which turned out to be little more than a workroom. The light of early morning barely managed to filter through the two grimy kitchen windows closed tight against the fresh air outside. She could not even see the woods that separated the house from the vast acres of orchards on the island.
The warmth in the room, however, felt good after walking in the chill of early morning for over two hours, but she would not have complained if the room had been ice-cold. Now that she had been invited into the house, she was determined to convince him to let her stay. When her footsteps crunched over dirt and grime that littered the wide-plank floor, she knew without even looking down that it needed a good sweeping, if not a solid scrubbing.
Jackson cringed as his boots crunched over the floor, too. “As you must have noticed already, we’ve managed to track in a good amount of dirt. I hope Reverend Shore and your cousin Mark told you how incredibly grateful I am that you’ve volunteered to help out here with the housekeeping and such. I’m afraid the house needs a good scrubbing,” he added meekly.
“That’s easy enough to do,” Ellie said as she glanced around the kitchen.
“May I take your cape?”
She swallowed hard again, slipped out of her cape, and handed it to him, all too aware of the badly stained skirts on her gown, which were now in full view. When his hand brushed hers for the briefest of moments, she felt a warm blush steal across her cheeks, then grow even warmer when he studied her stained garmen
Embarrassed by her appearance, she offered him a weak smile. When her thoughts focused on how handsome he was instead of how desperately she needed to assure him of her housekeeping skills, she quickly explained her mishap in hopes of convincing him she was not usually so unkempt.
“I’m not hurt,” she insisted as she concluded her tale. “My cape and gown actually took the brunt of my fall. I didn’t have time to return to the city to change, and I really must apologize for arriving here looking so unkempt, but—”
“I’m far more worried that you might have been hurt than I am about the state of your apparel,” he quipped before turning and hanging her cape on a wooden peg by the door. “Are you certain you feel up to working here today?” he asked as he approached her again. “Perhaps I should speak to your cousin about postponing your start here and—”
“No, please. I’m fine,” she insisted, fearful that her cousin would use this as the very excuse he needed to get rid of her for good.
He shook his head. “I’m afraid there could be any number of critters scurrying about on the island at this hour. They’re quite harmless, but I’d rather not take the risk that you might be frightened and fall again. I’ll speak to Michael Grant. Instead of letting you walk here alone from the landing after ferrying you across the river, he can walk with you.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ll just keep an eye out for critters, now that I know they’re out and about,” she insisted before opening the door to a subject that was much more important to her. “I’m afraid I haven’t any references to give you, but—”
“References?” He shook his head and smiled. “I admit that I don’t know your cousin all that well, but anyone Reverend Shore recommends doesn’t need any references. His assurances that you’re a competent housekeeper are enough for me, although I daresay the good reverend would be far more pleased if I brought my sons to Sunday services on a regular basis than he’d be with my expression of faith in his judgment.”
Ellie swallowed hard, reluctant, if not unwilling, to tell him that she had yet to meet Reverend Shore. Or that she had not seen her cousin in more than ten years until yesterday. Considering all that, she felt she was in no position to give him her opinion about his church attendance.
“I’m certain I can get your house back to rights,” she offered, anxious to prove her mettle and twice as anxious not to give him any cause to complain to her cousin about having to provide her with an escort.
Turning away, she glanced around the room. To her dismay, neglect was everywhere. The hodge-podge of jugs, cookware, tableware, and supplies on the shelves lining the outer wall on either side of the cookstove were either dusty with misuse or splattered with remnants of recent meals. The modern Step Top cooking stove itself was shrouded with grease and gunk. Lingering cooking smells, intensified by the heat in the kitchen, left no room for the heady scent of apples that had lined her way here.
The worktable in the center of the small room, as well as the drying table next to the indoor water pump, was littered with dirty dishes. Indeed, the only clear space in the entire room was on one of the window seats.
Disappointed not to have an old-fashioned hearth to use to prepare meals, Ellie sucked in her breath. Why women would give up cooking on an open hearth for an iron contraption that demanded constant cleaning and attention made no sense to her at all. Granted, she could easily scrub the cookstove clean, but actually using it to prepare meals for the next two weeks would be altogether a greater challenge for her—a challenge she had no choice but to meet.
Convinced her open-hearth cooking skills were probably as outdated as she was on the marriage market, she took a tenuous step closer to the cookstove to get a better look at the controls.
“I never did get around to setting the cookstove out on the side porch for the summer,” he offered a bit sheepishly.
“Then the unusually cool weather today is a blessing,” she managed, overwhelmed by the prospect of using this cookstove, as well as the work this kitchen demanded. If the rest of the house fared as poorly, she had no doubt she would need far more than the two weeks she promised to work here to set it to rights. Ellie wondered what her cousin would have to say about that.
Curious to see more of the house, she glanced through the doorway into the great room, where she saw his two motherless little boys sitting patiently at the dining table, only steps away, waiting for someone to make their breakfast. Just beyond them, a maze of wooden blocks they must have been playing with just before she arrived littered the floor between the fireplace in the center of the room and the front window.
The two boys were dressed identically in dark blue linen overalls and beige flannel shirts, just like their father’s. The younger boy’s clothing hung on his small frame, and she suspected he was wearing some of his brother’s hand-offs well before he should have given up his baby clothes. Their faces had been scrubbed clean, but their hair needed a good brushing, and she imagined there was more than a speck of dirt under their fingernails.
But it was the needy look on those two precious little faces that reached straight into her heart and tugged hard enough to prick her conscience. Hard enough to remind her that she was a woman of compassion. And definitely hard enough to suggest to her that God must have sent her here not for one, but two very good reasons, who were staring right back at her.
Jackson walked around her to enter the great room and stand protectively behind his sons. “This is Daniel. He’s five,” he said, squeezing the older boy’s shoulder first. “And this is Ethan.”
Ellie laid the cloth down on the worktable and joined the man and his sons in the great room.
“Boys, Spinster Kilmer came to help us for a few weeks. I’ll expect you to do as she tells you while she’s here,” he added sternly.
“You can call me Miss Ellie,” she offered, noting the look of distrust in both the boys’ gazes.
Daniel straightened his shoulders. With fawn brown hair and dark blue eyes, he looked at her with the same fierce gaze as his father and pointed to his younger brother. “Ethan’s only three. He likes griddle cakes for breakfast. A lot. Can you cook griddle cakes? We’re hungry.”
Ethan’s eyes widened with expectation, but he did not say a word. Apparently, he was much shyer than his older brother. He had his brother’s coloring, but he had a slimmer build and a slick of hair on the back of his head that stuck up like a sapling that had taken root in a bed of low grass.
“Don’t be so impatient, Daniel. The poor woman just got here. She has not even seen the rest of the house,” his father cautioned.
“I can do that later. Right now I’m feeling hungry, too,” Ellie insisted, particularly since she had not eaten anything before setting out today. Grateful that the cookstove had already been heated up, she smiled. “How about I make a good stack of griddle cakes for all of us? I’ll need some help, though, since I’m not accustomed to your kitchen,” she said.
Daniel scrambled off his chair, helped his younger brother down, and held his hand to keep him next to him. “I can reach the jug of maple syrup,” he explained, holding tight to his brother’s hand, although Ethan did not seem anxious to help.
“See if you can find the crock of butter, too,” she suggested.
“Ethan can get that,” Daniel offered but looked up at his father. After getting a nod of approval, he led his brother into the kitchen.
Despite her misgivings about making breakfast using that cookstove, Ellie kept her smile on her face and followed the boys into the kitchen, with Jackson close behind her. She spied a tired, dingy apron hanging from a peg on the wall next to the side door and quickly put it on.
“I should think it’s been very difficult to fend for yourself and the boys, especially at mealtime,” she said as she moved behind the table and started to clear a place to work.
Standing just inside the doorway, the man reached out and put a hand on each of his son’s shoulders as they attempted to race past him to take the maple syrup and crock of butter to the table. “Slow down or you’ll drop those,” he warned before releasing them and looking back at her again. “You met Michael Grant when he ferried you over here. His wife, Alice, and their daughter have been kind enough to help out here and there when they could. They’ve made extra at mealtimes some days and sent it over, but it’s been . . . difficult otherwise, since my last housekeeper left some weeks ago.”
