Lilac Spring Read online

  Even more telling was the fact that Winslow—even on his deathbed—was not ready to take him back.

  Silas stood, unable to sit near the man a minute longer, but the man’s hand was wrapped around his wrist.

  Winslow’s agitation increased. “Silas, please, so sorry. Shouldn’t have done it….”

  Silas was moved, despite himself, by the man’s condition. Winslow would most likely be facing eternity soon. Silas leaned over the bed and said as convincingly as he could, “It’s all right, Mr. Winslow. I—I—” The words stuck in his throat. “I forgive you.”

  Strangely enough, once he uttered the words, Silas felt a release. He straightened again and repeated, “Don’t trouble yourself. It’s all right. I forgive you.”

  “Thank you, Silas. Thank you.” The man relaxed. His fingers fell still.

  When Silas exited the bedroom, the first person he saw was Cherish. His heart twisted within him at the sight of her pale face, waiting for an encouraging verdict from him. One hand of hers clutched a handkerchief, which must have been sodden, judging by her tear-filled eyes.

  She was too hesitant to approach him, too afraid of what he might say about her father’s condition. Hope warred with fear in her eyes. He tried to smile as he stepped toward her.

  As he neared her, it was as if she couldn’t hold back any longer. “I did this to him, didn’t I?” she whimpered.

  He thought of nothing else then but of comforting her. He took another step toward her, bridging the space between them, and took her in his arms. “No, no, you didn’t,” he murmured against her hair as she cried into his chest. He cradled her, one hand cupped against her hair.

  “It’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right,” he whispered softly against her hair, his hand smoothing it. A part of him noted that he’d come full circle, back to his old role of big brother, adviser, friend—the one who bore the ultimate responsibility.

  Silas breathed in the lilac scent of her hair, knowing it would haunt him that night and for the nights to come.

  “Did Papa…did Papa say anything about us?” she managed to ask between sniffles.

  He swallowed, finally answering, “No. He just wanted to ask my forgiveness for having fired me. That’s all.”

  He could feel her slump against him. “Oh. I’m glad about that. But…you don’t think it means he might have reconsidered things about us?”

  Silas gently drew Cherish from him, although he kept hold of her. He peered into her eyes, knowing he must make her understand, without hurting her further. “I don’t know. What I do know is that he mustn’t be disturbed in any way. As the doctor said, he needs absolute peace and quiet.”

  She nodded like an obedient child. He drew her into his arms again, unable to stop himself from indulging one more time in the very feel and scent of her, before he had to leave her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Silas sat in the middle of the church, far enough away from the Winslow pew to be separated from them, but close enough to afford him a good view of Cherish. He had come in after the service had started and would probably escape before the pastor had a chance to station himself in the doorway to greet parishioners. The pastor announced Winslow’s collapse and led the entire congregation in prayer for Cherish’s father.

  When the sermon began, Silas saw that it attempted to address the situation confronting Winslow.

  “The title of my message this morning is ‘Trials and Tribulations,’” Pastor McDuffie told them after the last hymn had been sung and the collection plate passed around. His gaze seemed to include each and every one of them.

  “Jesus said, ‘In the world ye shall have tribulation.’ We sorrow and wonder when a fellow brother is struck down by a trial, such as our dear friend and neighbor Thomas Winslow. Our hearts go out to his family.” He gave Cherish and her aunt a compassionate smile.

  “But how many of us don’t secretly feel a tiny measure of relief that it wasn’t one of us this time?” His gaze drew them all back in again. “We know it has to come some time, but aren’t we glad it passed us by this time?

  “How are we supposed to view trials and tribulations?” Here he asked them to turn to the book of Job. “‘But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.’

  “None of us likes to be tested, do we? None of us likes to pass through the ‘fiery furnace.’ It’s nice to talk about it afterward. It’s somewhat romantic to describe it, once one has graduated to a higher plane of spirituality, isn’t that so?

  “I remember when I was in Bible school, full of zeal and ready to evangelize the world.” He chuckled, looking down at his podium a second. “It didn’t take long to bring me down a few pegs and shake up some of my assumptions once I entered the realities of pastoring, where one’s flock doesn’t necessarily want to be led where one is convinced they ought to go.”

  The pastor continued giving examples of his own life and trials in taking on the commission God had ordained for him. Silas found it hard to relate in many ways to what he was saying, since he’d never felt himself particularly called of the Lord to do anything. He assumed everyone around him was a Christian, and he felt it his duty only to support missionaries on foreign fields, to try to keep the Ten Commandments and treat others the way he wanted them to treat him.

  Pastor McDuffie’s message, on the other hand, caused him a certain discomfort. Perhaps he was feeling particularly sensitive since he’d had his life turned topsy-turvy by Winslow. His glance strayed to the back of Cherish’s head. She wore a pretty bonnet, her dark hair cascading down the back of her gown in a simple ponytail. All it took was a look and he felt a longing sweep through him. He fixed his attention on McDuffie at the pulpit.

  If this message was meant to comfort Cherish and her aunt, he thought it was a strange way to go about it.

  McDuffie exhorted his congregation to use every situation, every circumstance to learn from the Lord. Silas rubbed the back of his neck, feeling only impatience at such advice.

  “Please turn to the first verse in Romans 12.” Silas picked up the black Bible at his side, hearing the rustle of pages turning all around him. It took him a while to locate the book, which he knew only was somewhere in the New Testament.

  “‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice….’”

  The rest of the verse faded out. He had stopped listening after the word sacrifice. It sounded almost pagan, presenting one’s body as a sacrifice to God. It conjured up images of Abraham offering up his son to be burned on an altar to please God in some strange, barbaric fashion. This was not the God Silas could imagine as the Christian God.

  He preferred to think of God as the good shepherd. Jesus, in a white robe, surrounded by children, holding out His hands to them to bless them.

  As the sermon wound down, Pastor McDuffie urged the people to come up to the altar to recommit their lives to God—to present themselves indeed as “living sacrifices” to Him.

  Silas sat in his pew as he watched a good number of people, though by no means all, file up to the altar, where the pastor and his wife and the deacons prayed for them.

  The impromptu prayer service put a hitch in Silas’s plans to escape quietly from the service before the others. By the time the pastor dismissed the congregation, Silas was stuck in the middle of all those standing, moving like sheep through the pews and into the crowded aisle.

  At the doorway McDuffie shook his hand, his other gripping his arm. “Hello, Silas. How have you been keeping? I’m sorry about Mr. Winslow. It must be terrible for you. I know he must be like a father to you. We have all of you in our prayers. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do for you.”

  Silas disengaged his hand, murmuring his assent and turning away. He felt like a fraud. Winslow’s son? Did people assume he was holding down the fort at the shipyard? What was he supposed to say? That he was camping out at a drunkard’s shack
?

  “You and Cherish must come over for dinner this week.”

  Silas looked back over his shoulder at the pastor. “We’ll see,” he muttered, stepping quickly down the steps. There he was stopped by another man, who wanted to know about his dory.

  What should he tell people? That he no longer worked at the shipyard? He felt in limbo since Winslow’s collapse. It was one thing for the man to ask his pardon; it was another thing to know that Winslow wanted to rehire him. And if he did, did Silas even want to come back? The question stumped him.

  “I know the dory’s about ready,” he told the man. “Why don’t you check in at the shop tomorrow?” he suggested.

  Before he had a chance to make a getaway, Cherish reached him. “Silas, why didn’t you sit with us?” She looked beautiful in her deep-rose-and-white gown, ladylike in every detail from the dainty white gloves to the ruffled hem.

  “I’m not part of your household anymore,” he answered quietly, not wishing anyone to overhear their conversation. Before she could reply, he asked, “How is your father?”

  “Very weak, but at least he made it through the night. I must get right back.”

  He nodded.

  “I thought Papa…” She floundered. “Didn’t Papa say he was sorry to you?”

  He toyed with the hat brim in his hands. “But he didn’t ask me to come back.”

  She closed her eyes a moment. “Why?” she asked simply.

  “You’ll have to ask him that,” he answered, knowing full well she wouldn’t be able to do so as long as her father’s health was so precarious.

  “What did he tell you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is that Dr. Turner doesn’t want him to be upset by anything right now. And I think that includes me.”

  “I see.” She looked away a moment, answering someone’s greeting with a smile that didn’t let on that she was feeling anything more than good Sunday cheer.

  Two women accosted her, inquiring solicitously after her father.

  “Dr. Turner says his condition has stabilized, but he will have to maintain bed rest for some time.”

  “Oh, thank the good Lord that he’s better,” said one, her white gloves clasped together in an attitude of prayer.

  “What a shame,” the other one clucked, shaking her head. “He was so healthy…such a vigorous man, your father….”

  “Yes, I think he was working too hard. Dr. Turner told him he must slow down.”

  Silas watched Cherish, hardly listening to the conversation. She gave all her attention to the older women, hiding her own feelings. No one watching her could guess what she had been through in the past twenty-four hours.

  He knew how much she loved her father. He realized as he observed her that she always put on a good face. She was truly a lady, he admitted, with a kind, polite word for whoever crossed her path. Only those closest to her were privileged to see her moments of crossness, her tears, her bad moments. He’d been one of the few, he realized.

  When the women left, Cherish turned back to him. “Won’t you be coming back to the boat shop?”

  He shook his head. “Your father even told me he would give me a good recommendation to any other shipyard.”

  Again she was interrupted by some people leaving the churchyard.

  When she gave him her attention once more, all she said was “Let me know…if you find anything away from here. Will you do that?”

  He could promise her that. He nodded. “I will.” He put out his hand. “Goodbye, Cherish.”

  Her hand met his and he clasped it. She turned from him before he could make a move away.

  As he took his road homeward, he wished for things as they had been. Wouldn’t it be nice now to go home with the Winslows for Sunday dinner and afterward sit on the front porch on the swing and discuss things with Cherish—perhaps the morning’s sermon? He could ask her how it had affected her. Had she, like him, found it a bit extreme? No, for she had gone up to the altar. Did that mean she had accepted the pastor’s challenge, or simply that she needed prayer today?

  He sighed and trudged the long, dusty road to Lupine Cove to break bread with Tobias Tibbetts. He wouldn’t know now.

  That week neighbors brought covered dishes to the Winslow household. After a dinner of a mixture of foods, Cherish sat upstairs with her father, reading to him from the Bible.

  “Cherish?”

  “Yes, Papa, can I get you anything?”

  “Did you see Silas today?”

  “Not since Sunday.”

  “He hasn’t come back to the shipyard?” His tone betrayed only mild interest.

  “No.”

  “I’d like to see him again. Could you have Jacob fetch him?”

  Her heartbeat quickened. Maybe he had relented. “Yes, Papa” was all she said.

  Tom Winslow was sitting up in bed, propped up against pillows, when Silas was shown into his room. “Hello, Silas.”

  “Hello, Mr. Winslow,” he replied, having come as soon as he’d been summoned. “You’re looking better.”

  “Thank you. I didn’t think I was going to make it the other day. Sit down…please.”

  Silas complied, wondering what Winslow wanted. Hadn’t Silas given him enough?

  He was quiet some moments longer. Finally Winslow said, “You know how angry I was at you.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s the only reason I did what I did. I…I didn’t want you finding work anywhere near Cherish.”

  “Forget it. It’s over and done,” he said, realizing how weak Winslow’s condition still was.

  The man’s mouth worked silently as he struggled to express himself. While Silas was figuring out how to calm him, Winslow continued. “Cherish…she can have the best man in the county…. Don’t keep her back, Silas.”

  “I wouldn’t do that, sir.”

  He continued as if Silas hadn’t spoken. “I gave her the best of everything…education, the best that money could buy…exposure to the world…she’s had the best of everything…. Don’t hold her back, Silas. Please!”

  “I didn’t set out to court her, Mr. Winslow. I didn’t do anything to pursue her, I swear it! Believe me, I fought it as hard as I could.”

  Winslow regarded him and finally nodded his head with an effort. “I believe you, son. But you have fallen for her, haven’t you? I can see it in your eyes, hear it in your voice. You couldn’t help yourself, could you? She’s special.

  “I know…she’s headstrong and impetuous. When she makes up her mind she wants something, she’ll pursue it with all her will. I don’t blame you, son. She’s like her mother. I fell for her, fell hard, the first time I laid eyes on her.” He smiled in reminiscence.

  “She was beautiful, not just on the outside, but through and through, like Cherish. It just shines out of her. I know how irresistible Cherish must have been to you, waltzing in from abroad. She probably took your breath away, like her mother did mine.”

  Then he sobered, his eyes narrowing at Silas. “But you’re older than she is. You bear the burden of responsibility.”

  Silas shifted in his chair at the last words. They echoed too closely what his own conscience had been telling him.

  “You and I, Silas, we’re just simple boatbuilders.” He lifted his hand from the bedspread and turned it around. “Nothing but carpenters, deep down. Our needs are simple. Give us a boat plan and some wood and we’ll be happy.

  “But Cherish, she’s special. She’s seen the world. She’s beautiful, intelligent, lively. She can have her heart’s desire. She thinks she’d be happy working in the boat shop for the rest of her days. Would you limit her to that life—the only one you can offer her?”

  Silas felt himself growing smaller with each sentence. They pounded into his soul, finding confirmation there.

  “If you really care about her, don’t you wish more for her—the things a fine gentleman can give her? The kind of life she deserves? I’ve done all in my power to prepare her. Now
it’s time for her to live it. Would you truly shackle Cherish to your narrow world? Would you, son?”

  The word hit Silas on the raw. How could Winslow call him son—a term he’d never before used with him—and ask what he was asking of him?

  They gazed hard at one another, Silas wrestling with yearnings so deep, he’d never had the chance to give voice to them. Winslow’s gaze was understanding but uncompromising.

  “No, sir,” Silas answered finally, wondering why he found it so hard to utter two simple words. Nothing Winslow had said came as a surprise. They were the same words he’d told himself—if not in such clear detail. Certainly deep in his subconscious he’d been telling himself these same things since the day Cherish had walked into the boat shop after her two-year absence.

  Why were they so difficult to receive as he heard them spoken aloud by someone who loved Cherish and wanted only the best for her?

  As soon as he left Winslow’s room, Cherish came to him.

  “What did my father want?”

  He looked straight into her eyes, knowing he’d have to be candid with her, for the sake of her father’s health. “He doesn’t want us to see each other anymore.”

  After Silas had left, Cherish sat with her father until he fell asleep. She didn’t let on that she knew anything of his conversation with Silas.

  Softly she exited the room and made her way outside to the veranda. The trees were lush and green, interspersed with the lacy white blossoms of the wild pear trees. It seemed that everything bloomed at once in June, from roses to lilacs, as if they knew how fleeting the season would be.

  Loneliness engulfed her. It saddened her to see her father brought so low. Only a few days before, he had been hale and hearty. Now he seemed pathetically weak. Worse than his physical weakness was his spiritual and emotional weakness. He seemed so lost.

  Her sorrow fought with her frustration at her father’s attitude toward Silas. How could her father be so unreasonable? Every instinct screamed out to do something, even as her common sense reminded her of her father’s delicate condition.