A Violet Season (16 page)

As for me, I am learning to tend the stokehouse fires, and other than that, I mostly sleep. Sometimes when I wake in the afternoon I do some odd jobs at the church—yesterday fixing a broken hinge on the chancel door—and I have been doing some reading in the law, still thinking about my decision of what to do next. I will admit it: I cannot make a decision without spending more time with you. I want to be near you, Dear, and I hope you feel the same. If ever it becomes possible for you to receive visitors, you must write me at once. In the meantime, I will hope to see you at Christmas, maybe even before this letter reaches your beautiful eyes.

I remain yours,
Joe

December 30, 1898

Dearest Alice,

I have been waiting every day for word from you, and none has come. I hope this letter will cross one from you in the mail. Every day that goes by, I am thinking of you constantly.

I saw your family at church on Christmas, and my heart was pounding, looking for you, but no use. Your mother smiled at me, but we have not spoken in some time. She seemed very tired. You say that she has not written you, but maybe she has and you haven’t received her letters. Does she have Mrs. Gilhooley’s address? I wonder why I cannot write to you at your boardinghouse. Can you not trust your employer to deliver your mail?

I will write you more later when I know you are receiving my letters. For now, I will just tell you that work on the farm is going well, though I am on stokehouse duty, which is very tiring. I am up all night shoveling coal into one boiler, then stomping through the cold or the dark tunnels to shovel coal into the next, on up the hill, and then to the bottom to begin again. Sometimes if the stove at the bottom is still stoked, I can lie down on the cot there and catch a few winks, but then it’s through the whole thing again. I find it hard to get a full night’s sleep during the day, so I am worn out and, I am sorry to say, sometimes short on patience. I enjoy spending nights near your home. I like standing up on the ridge and watching your house. There is often a low light on even in the middle of the night. I imagine your mother is awake with her babies. I like to pretend that light is you, waiting for me. You will wait for me, won’t you, Dear?

I remain yours,
Joe

January 7, 1899

Dear Alice,

I am afraid of two things: either my letters are not reaching you, or you have decided you don’t wish to hear from me. As I have no way of knowing which it is, I will hope it is the former, but then there is no use in my continuing to write. If it is the latter, just a brief note from you will release me from my worry.
I will be sorry—I will even say heartbroken—if you refuse me, but then at least I will know. Please do me that kindness.

Yours,
Joe

January 15, 1899

Dearest Alice,

Again, I have not heard from you. Perhaps it is too soon to assume you did not get my last letter. In any case, I feel compelled to try to reach you again.

I am writing to you by the light of a candle as I sit in greenhouse 4, trying to warm up before I make my rounds again. I reckon the temperature to be close to zero. Just walking between the houses stings my face and the tips of my fingers. I am glad, in a way, that you cannot see me these days. This soft coal is a mess—all over my hands and face. My mother complains about the wash. She must use a separate tub of water for my work clothes.

Your cousin Norris is in charge for a month or so while your aunt and uncle are in Florida. He has a lot to learn about managing his employees. Reuben had the poor idea of complaining about how Norris was treating him, so he sent Reuben to shadow me on the overnight rounds without releasing him from the two days of work on either side. Your father didn’t say a word. Imagine the state poor Reuben was in by the end of the second day. Of course, the result was he fell off his picking board and damaged several rows of violets and sprained his wrist beside. Now he cannot pick for several weeks. We are all looking forward to your uncle’s return.

We have had very cold weather. The skating on Ellerbys’ pond has been very good—the boys play hockey every afternoon, and the young people have been skating after church on Sundays. They have asked me to join them, but they are all younger (as you are!) and I do not care to socialize without you.
Is that foolish of me? It doesn’t seem fair when I know you are spending your Sundays at labor.

I hope this letter finds you well. Please write me very soon, and when you are asleep at night, dream of me standing up on Violet Ridge watching over you.

Yours,
Joe

January 25, 1899

Dearest Alice,

As I have not heard from you, I am assuming you are not receiving my letters. Therefore, I should not be writing, but I cannot help myself, my dear. I am hopeful that one day a letter will get through again, and then you will write me immediately to tell me you are all right. Sometimes I cannot sleep for worrying over you.

Know that my love for you has not changed. Do you remember that September evening when we first walked up on the ridge and watched the sun set, and we confided our feelings for each other? I feel now just as I felt then, only more so. I hope I am not being too forward to say it in writing. I know you remember—please say you still love me, too.

There has been some snow here. Maybe you had it in the city as well. I had to shovel out all the greenhouse doors. Believe me when I say I was not happy about that job, and I was awfully sore the next few days. Now the snow around the houses is covered in black soot—very ugly—but inside, the perfume of the flowers is so sweet. Especially the white ones, I can’t remember the name of them. When you smell them, you could hardly imagine anything wrong with the world. Then I think of you and I am worried again.

Please write me soon.

I remain yours,
Joe

February 1, 1899

Dear Joe,

I have received your letters. I am sorry I have worried you so, but I am afraid you would not love me anymore if you knew what had become of me. I am afraid to say I love you, too, but I am also afraid of losing you, so I am writing to you against my better judgment. I do remember, of course, all the things you mention, and more. I think most of all of the day I felt so desperate to see you that I invented an excuse to go up the hill, and I found you way up on the ridge. No one else was there, and we sat in the shady grass and you brushed my hair with your fingers. When I close my eyes at night, I often imagine that stolen half hour with you.

Now I must ask you to stop writing to me and stop thinking of me, for you do not know anymore who I am. I shall always love you.

Alice

February 12, 1899

Dear Alice,

I don’t know what to think of your last letter, though I have read it again and again over the past several days. I am fearful for your safety. Also, I cannot decide whether you mean for me to listen to your advice, for in the same letter you remember me so tenderly. I have decided to ignore your instruction and hope for a time when I will see you again.

Things here are very busy for the Valentine’s Day rush. I wonder if you have heard that some time ago your father brought home a second baby for your mother to care for. She looks to be overworked and tired out. I saw her just yesterday as I was leaving, early in the morning, for home. She was out in the barn, walking with the new baby, who was screaming. The big door was open, so I stopped and called out to her, but we could not converse over the baby’s screams.

There has been plenty of snow of late. When I shovel the paths, in places it is as high as my waist, and near the stoke-houses it tells a story of the winter, with bands of black soot layered between every snowfall so you can tell how much there has been—eight inches here, ten there, and so on, and a top coat of six inches, already covered again with soot. It is ugly on top, but interesting when you slice into the layers.

I am told that after Valentine’s Day things slow down, so I may try to do some extra work cutting ice on the river. I get a little sleep nights even though I am stoking the furnaces, and I don’t sleep much during the day, so I may as well go there with some of the farmers and earn some extra cash.

I anxiously await word from you and I remain yours,

Joe

March 1, 1899

Dear Joe,

I realize I told you not to write me again, but I confess I live for your letters. Don’t stop.

I am sorry to hear that my mother seems so tired. I have not heard from her nor from anyone else but you. Your letters are my only reminder of home.

I miss you terribly. I hope you are taking care out on the ice.

Write again soon, please.

Alice

March 8, 1899

Dear Alice,

All you need to do is tell me where I may find you, and I will get on the train as soon as your word arrives and be there to take you away.

The nights are warming, and some nights I am no longer stoking the boilers. We will soon be picking for the Easter
rush, and then I will be searching for a new, steady job. I could even come to the city and look for work near you. I am confident that I could support us both. I am asking you to be my wife. No matter what has happened to you, I love you.

I remain yours,
Joe

April 1, 1899

Dear Joe,

If you can think of the very worst thing that could happen to a young lady in the city, then you can think of my situation. Gert Gilhooley knows where to find me. You must understand that I am exposing myself to you to write such a thing, and I trust that if you decide not to come, as I expect you will not, that you will at least be gentleman enough to keep this dangerous news to yourself. Surely you understand what would happen to me if others knew. Perhaps it is too late already, but in my heart, I still hope that there is some way out of my situation, though I confess I cannot imagine what it is. I am sorry for any pain I have caused you.

Alice

T
he winter days between Christmas and Harriet’s trip to New York were the longest and darkest Ida had known. The sun set before Frank and Oliver and Reuben came in to supper. For several frigid January evenings, Frank went out to the barn and built a crude pine cradle for Anabel. Jasper slept in the trundle bed and Mary in Jasper’s old cradle. With a second cradle for Anabel, Ida could no longer keep Frank from his bed. They hardly spoke to each other in the cold mornings and evenings, but they again slept side by side. Between nighttime feedings, Ida often lay awake, watchful of the space between his body and her own.

Then Harriet returned from her shopping excursion to New York with terrible news. “We hired a cab and drove back and forth looking for the address you gave me,” she said. “Ida, it doesn’t exist.”

Ida would have to go to the city herself, though where she would go once she got there was a mystery. She thought of the strange letter tucked away among her tea towels and wondered whether it had anything to do with Alice’s whereabouts.

One day when the cold eased and Ida had use of the wagon, she called on Jennie Morton and asked the great favor of leaving Anabel with her to nurse for a day, with a promise to return the favor whenever Jennie needed it. She couldn’t ask her neighbor to feed
two babies, however. Mary was older and heartier, and this time of year there was less worry about babies coming down with diarrhea. She would leave Jasper and Mary with Harriet, who could hand-feed the baby cow’s milk. Ida had no hand-feeding equipment, but from Ashley’s brief stay, she knew what to ask for in the pharmacy. With money borrowed from her monthly allowance, she purchased a glass bottle and a rubber nipple. This set her back from purchasing her train ticket, but everything must be in place, and without Frank’s knowledge.

The train schedule and fares were posted on the packing room wall. For four more weeks Ida saved her pennies and nickels, forgoing sugar and coffee and meat until Frank complained and grew suspicious. She imagined every coin put her a mile closer to Alice; she hoarded them like ducats in the toe of an old pair of stockings, taking satisfaction in their growing weight each time she added to her collection.

Finally, on the last day of February, Ida borrowed the wagon again. She stopped to see Mrs. Morton, then went to the station and purchased a ticket, praying the clerk wouldn’t recognize her and mention it to Frank. Late in the afternoon she visited Harriet and instructed her on the use of the glass feeding bottle. In two days, she would make the trip.

*   *   *   

On the morning of the first of March, a misty rain fell, so light that the slightest updraft would abort its fall. Those drops that made their destination froze crystalline in the cracks of the stone path and silvered the sky-facing branches of the spruce trees. In the barnyard, mud from a late February thaw firmed to flakes. Frank’s and the boys’ feet stirred it into a manure-like paste that they brought in the back entry and kicked off against the wood box. That night, before packing for the following day’s trip, Ida scrubbed the floor from the mudroom to the sink to the kitchen
table. She went to bed with a dull ache in her back and a throbbing in her head and woke twice in the night, thirsting for water.

When she woke in the morning, she couldn’t move. She attempted to lift her head, but it felt heavy as a melon, and every joint—shoulders, elbows, hips—resisted with a leaden ache. Mary stirred and rooted for breakfast, but when she took Ida’s nipple in her mouth, a sharp pain shot through Ida’s breast and a film of sweat bloomed on her forehead. Gathering what energy she could, Ida rolled the baby over her rib cage and settled her on the other side to try the other breast. This Mary drained in ten minutes, while Ida cupped her sore right breast in her hand, wondering what she would do when Anabel awoke. Her skin was inflamed, as if a burning coal were beneath the surface, and her nipple throbbed with each beat of her heart. She heard the boys rummaging about in the kitchen, and she called out to Oliver for help.