Lilac Spring (21 page)

“Now what?” Carrie asked.

Too ashamed to mention the financial situation, Cherish looked down. “Nothing. It just seems more hopeless than ever.”

Carrie enfolded her in her arms. “You know what I suggest?”

“No, what?” she asked, her voice muffled against Carrie’s shoulder.

“That you go out there and join those two instead of trying to throw them together. Be Silas’s friend as you always have, and be Annalise’s friend.”

“What if they don’t want me?”

“Oh,” she crooned, a smile in her voice, “remember Who you have living on the inside of you. If Silas doesn’t love you in the way you dream about, he still cares for you very much. Otherwise he wouldn’t be trekking over there to the shipyard every evening after putting in a hard day at the cannery.”

Cherish acknowledged the truth of what the pastor’s wife was saying and felt doubly ashamed. Had she ever done anything like that for Silas?

As if reading her thoughts, Carrie told her, “Just love him with the love of the Lord, and you’ll find fulfillment beyond anything you ever imagined.”

Cherish straightened. “Yes, you’re right. The Lord has been showing me that. Thank you for reminding me.”

“Now, go.”

When she came back outside, Silas and Annalise were returning from their stroll around the garden. Cherish, feeling nervous, walked down the steps to meet them. She felt Silas’s gaze on her, and she met it squarely. She turned to Annalise, who had her eyes upon Silas. Cherish took hold of a lilac spray at the edge of the veranda and inhaled deeply. “I think this is my favorite scent.”

Silas reached over, broke it off and presented it to her. “It smells like you.”

She took the branch from him and brought it to her nostrils. “Does it?” In that instant it was as if the two of them were alone in the garden. Annalise ceased to exist; Pastor McDuffie’s voice behind her faded away. She wanted to reach out and touch Silas’s brow and brush back the shock of hair. Instead she gave him a wobbly smile and looked down at the flowers held to her nose.

At the end of his shift Silas left the cannery, took the small skiff he’d left tied to the wharf and rowed back across the harbor to the parsonage. The McDuffies had insisted he return there first, wash and eat supper before putting in his time at the shipyard.

When he entered the parsonage kitchen, Mrs. McDuffie greeted him from the stove. “Hello, there. Your bathwater is
ready.” Before he could react, she had stooped and was dragging the full tub forward.

He moved immediately. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”

She straightened and pushed the damp tendrils away from her face. “You and Arlo are the same, thinking I’m a fragile butterfly.”

“I hope you didn’t go and fill this tub by yourself.”

She smiled. “Put your worries at rest. Arlo did it for me. Now I’ll leave you to your bath. I’ve laid out your clean clothes there.” She indicated the neatly draped clothes over the chair back. “Leave your dirty ones here. I’ll wash them out later. We’ll eat supper when you’re ready.”

Before he could argue with her, she was gone. As he sat in the tin tub, he reflected on what had just happened. The pastor had prepared a bath for him; his wife had washed and pressed his clothes and had an appetizing dinner ready at his convenience.

He finished his bath, dressed and combed his hair—Mrs. McDuffie had even laid out his comb and handkerchief for him. He emptied out the dirty bathwater in the yard. Then he called Mrs. McDuffie back into the kitchen.

“You smell good, Silas,” Janey told him, coming over to stand beside him.

“Thank you.”

“Will you play with me?”

“First let me see what I can do to help your mother.”

“Janey will set the table for us,” her mother told them. “Supper is just about ready. Why don’t you call Arlo in?”

“Where is he?”

She laughed. “Oh, at this time most likely you’ll find him down on the beach.”

Silas walked across the lawn, past the barn and outbuildings, to the crushed-clamshell path leading to the pebbly beach. This side of the yard looked seaward. The open surf washed up pieces of driftwood, old buoys and broken lobster pots onto the dark, slate-colored stones. He spied the pastor down the narrow stretch of beach. His hands folded behind his back, he was pacing up and down, talking to himself in a loud voice.

Silas began walking toward him, hoping he’d be spotted and not embarrass the pastor in his soliloquy.

His wish was not granted. As he neared McDuffie, the pastor still had his back to him. His speech had turned to lusty singing.

“‘A mighty fortress is our God…’”

Just then he turned, and the words died on his lips. His mouth broke into a smile, and he didn’t seem at all disconcerted at finding Silas there.

“Good evening, Silas.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

“You’re no interruption.” He turned and stood facing the surf. “Beautiful day, isn’t it? He has truly given us ‘His wonders to behold,’ wouldn’t you say?”

When Silas didn’t answer, he continued. “This is where I come to talk with God—worship Him, give Him thanks—”

“Do you ever…get mad at God?” The words were out before he could stop them.

McDuffie only smiled. “Oh, yes. I’ve had my times of railing against circumstances. I don’t always like what the Lord shows me—least of all about myself. I don’t always want to do what He wants me to do.”

Silas gazed at his calm face. “What do you do at those times?”

“After haranguing and arguing, you mean? Oh, the Lord lets me get it out of my system. And then His presence is there—still, unsearchable, uncompromising, steady.

“I’m always reminded of the words He gave His servant Job. ‘Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man.’” He turned his face to Silas. “You know what never ceases to amaze me?”

Silas shook his head.

“He never recognized Job’s right to self-pity.” McDuffie leaned down, picked up a smooth stone and threw it into the sea. “Yet we humans would love nothing better than to wallow in it. That and bitterness—twin evils, I call them.”

“I can’t imagine you indulging in self-pity.”

He gestured with his head upward. “He wouldn’t permit it. There’s too much work to be done. You know I came here to Haven’s End a young man on fire for God and found myself in a spiritual wasteland, you might say, as stagnant as a marsh. People here, although good, God-fearing folk, wouldn’t move. They didn’t want any more of God than they already had, thank you very much. They’d receive my Sunday sermon, the Sunday-school lesson, read the sermon in the paper on Sunday afternoon, and that was it until the following Sunday.

“I would exhort them. They could have so much more of the fullness of God, to walk in that ‘life more abundantly’ that Jesus promised us, to receive the ‘inner court’ blessings, to enter in the Holiest of Holies!” His voice had risen, his demeanor reflecting all the enthusiasm he felt. He broke off with a smile. “Be careful or you’ll have me preaching.

“I suppose you’ve been sent to call me in to supper.”

“Yes.”

“Come, then,” he said, directing him back to the house.

“How did you reconcile your situation here?” asked Silas, feeling curious after seeing the fire, now banked, in McDuffie, and realizing it was not present just during Sunday sermons.

“I spent many hours down here, pounding the sand, you might say,” he said. “Eventually the Lord showed me that if I could reach—truly reach—one or two individuals during a period, I should count myself blessed indeed.”

“What do you mean, truly reach? Are all the rest of us sinners?”

Pastor McDuffie took his question seriously.

“To truly reach someone is to have the chance to disciple that individual, to watch him grow into the deeper truths of the Word. To go from the milk to the meat of the Word.” He shook his head thoughtfully. “After all, how many did our Lord choose out as disciples but twelve?”

As they neared the farmhouse, McDuffie said, “Cherish was one of those the Lord gave me. How hungry she was to know God,” he recalled. “She’d devour the Scriptures.”

“You speak in the past tense,” Silas observed.

“So I do. The truth is she’s been away quite a bit since those days. I’ve been remiss since she’s come home, busy with so many things that I’ve had little time to talk with her and find out the state of her spirit. Carrie has been after me about it. I know it’s been difficult for Cherish these last couple of weeks with her father’s illness. Sometimes the good Lord allows certain things we might perceive as calamities to remind us of Who He is and what our real purpose on this earth is.”

As they washed their hands at the pump, McDuffie began talking about how he and his wife met. “Carrie was the daughter of one of my professors at seminary. A great man of God, he was. He went to his final homecoming a few years back.

“Carrie and I fancied each other from the first time we met, and we sought the Lord’s will for our future. He confirmed it more than once that she and I were to be man and wife.”

When Silas made no comment, McDuffie turned to him as they entered the kitchen door. “It’s a great comfort to a man, you know, to have a helpmate. God gave us each a partner, and there’s no closer relationship than that between a man and woman. He has made us one when we’re joined by Him.”

Silas followed him to the table, wondering at his words. Did he guess what was in Silas’s heart? As Silas watched Pastor McDuffie and his wife at the table, listened to their conversation, observed their understanding and their interaction with their daughter, he felt a pang of envy.

There was only one woman with whom he could imagine such a union as the pastor spoke of. That woman was denied to him.

S
ilas stood at the kitchen door to the Winslow house. He told himself he was going to see Winslow and report on the progress of the schooner. He swallowed his disappointment when Aunt Phoebe answered his knock on the door.

“Oh, it’s you, Silas. I’ve missed you so. Come in, don’t stand there.” Mrs. Sullivan shooed him inside. “I hear you’re at Pastor McDuffie’s.”

“Yes, they invited me to stay a while.”

“I’m glad. They’re good people.” She gave him a look of understanding. “I wish…well, it doesn’t much matter what I wish. I’m just sorry you’re not here anymore.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Sullivan.”

“Well, I assume you’ve come to see Cherish or Tom. They’re both up in his bedroom. Why don’t you go on up?”

Silas took the stairs slowly, wondering whether he shouldn’t just turn back. He didn’t know how Mr. Winslow would react if he just showed up when Cherish was there with him.

At Mr. Winslow’s bedroom he hesitated again. The door was closed, although not quite all the way. He heard Cherish’s voice coming through. He stopped, his hand lifted to knock.

“Why is the sum so large?” he heard Cherish ask her father.

“Your trip abroad came at a bad time at the shipyard. Things had been slowing gradually, and I kept telling myself all it would take was one good month and I’d pay everything off.”

Silas knew he should back away, but he stood motionless.

“Why would the bank lend you such a sum knowing how things were? Didn’t they want to be paid back?”

“As long as I had the collateral, they were willing to advance me the money.”

“The collateral?”

“I put up the shipyard as a guarantee.”

“You mean…if you couldn’t pay back the loan, they could take the shipyard?”

“But I knew that would never happen! I mean…since you came home and I saw how well you and Warren Townsend were getting along, I just hoped…well, if the two of you should decide on formalizing things, there would be no problem. Old Townsend could have an interest in the shipyard.”

“Oh, Papa.” Cherish’s voice sounded defeated, as if she had been over this argument before. “Is that why you’ve been pushing me to be friends with Warren?”

“Of course not! It’s just you two seem so right for each other. I really wish you’d give him a chance, for my sake.”

Their voices grew lower and Silas turned around then, one thought uppermost in his mind—to get away before either of them knew he had overheard their conversation.

He let himself out of the now deserted kitchen and walked briskly toward the boat shop. He went immediately to work with the other men on the interior hull of the schooner. They were now laying the decks and caulking the hull.

After he’d worked for more than an hour, he felt calm enough in his thoughts to know how to proceed. He made up his mind to go back and visit Winslow, alone, and find out exactly the sum of money he owed.

This time it was Cherish who opened the front door to him. He knew that probably no one would be in the kitchen at that hour, so he had walked up to the front veranda this time.

Now he wished Mrs. Sullivan had answered his knock.

“Silas! Good evening.” Cherish opened the door wider. “Won’t you come in? Is something the matter?”

He stepped into the corridor as Cherish closed the door behind him. “I don’t want to let the june bugs in,” she said with a nervous laugh as they turned to each other.

He peered at her face. It looked pale. Her eyes, their pupils wide, looked dark. His dream came back to him, and he realized he should have heeded it. If he hadn’t been so busy lately with his own misery, he would have discerned sooner the changes in her manner toward him. But he realized, looking at her now, watching her hands knot in front of her, that she was indeed uneasy around him.

Did it have to do with her father’s heart attack? Or with the financial situation?

He cleared his throat. “I came by to see your father. I hope it’s not too late in the evening.”

“No, he’s still up. He’d like a visitor, I’m sure. Come, I’ll take you up.”

She made no effort to make small talk with him, and he didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He followed her silently up the stairs he’d just recently descended.

“Papa, look who’s here to visit you.”

“Oh, Silas, good evening. Come on in.”

“Can I get you anything?” Cherish asked him, and he felt a pang at the formality of her tone, as if he were a guest and she the mistress inquiring politely.

“No, thank you,” he said, holding his hat in his hands.

“Well, have a seat, Silas, and tell me about the schooner.”

Cherish excused herself and closed the door behind her.

After talking about the activities down on the stocks, Silas fell silent, wondering how to bring up what was uppermost in his mind.

“Mr. Winslow?”

“Yes, what is it?”

He cleared his throat. There was no help for it but to plunge in. “Is it true you owe some money to the bank?”

He could see the other man’s immediate agitation in the way his hands moved over the bedcovers. “Who told you about that?”

Silas cleared his throat again. “I just overheard something. I don’t mean to pry, but I thought maybe…there was something I could do…help in some way.” He leaned forward, regretting already that he’d come. What could he do?

But Winslow, rather than be offended or find it humorous, patted his hand. “I appreciate your concern, my boy.” He sighed deeply, leaning his head back against his pillows. “I guess I’ve made quite a mess of things.”

“How much do you owe?”

“Two thousand dollars,” he said, giving him a sidelong glance that said more eloquently than words that such a quantity was beyond Silas’s noble offer of help.

The words reverberated in Silas’s mind. It was an enormous sum. He didn’t know anyone in Haven’s End who could easily lay hands on that amount.

“When is it due?” he finally asked.

“End of the month,” Winslow said with a twist of his lips.

End of the month? That left scarcely a week more.

When he left Winslow’s house, he scarcely noticed his walk home. All he could think of was the sum of two thousand dollars. What was Winslow to do? What would become of the boatyard? What would become of Cherish?

Cherish spent the next day pondering her course of action. Since the night before with her father, she knew she must face what must be done.

She slumped over the papers in front of her on her father’s desk. The numbers, no matter how many times added, continued to tell her the same thing—there simply was not enough money coming in.

Her head snapped up at the sound of the door.

“Hello, Cherish. What are you looking so dejected about?”

“Oh, nothing!” she answered immediately, and put on her brightest smile. “Hello, Warren. What brings you to Haven’s End?”

“I thought I’d come see you in your place of employment this time. I’ll ride over to see your father in a little while.”

She smiled. “Well, here you see me.”

He took a seat across the desk from her and she admired once again what a good-looking gentleman he was. He was wearing a lightweight tweed jacket and fawn-colored trousers.

They chatted a while about things in Hatsfield.

“Cherish.” Warren’s gentle tones made her raise her eyes.

“Yes?”

“We’ve been seeing each other quite a few weeks now. I’d say we get along pretty well, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, we do.” Oh, no, she thought, it couldn’t be. Was he going to? Suddenly she found she wasn’t prepared for the thing she’d been thinking about so much. What would she say?

He leaned forward in his chair and gave a small cough into his hand. Then he looked earnestly at her. “Would you ever consider…that is, would you do me the honor of…becoming my wife?”

She found she didn’t know what to say. She should be honored, relieved. This is what her father wanted. This would solve everything. Warren was the most eligible bachelor in the county, and here she sat mute as a mouse.

He gave a rueful smile. “You don’t have to look so astonished. Does this come as a complete surprise?”

She had to smile at that. “No, not if I’m completely honest.” She became serious. “Warren, you’ve flattered me deeply with your proposal.”

“Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”

She blushed, again wishing…

“You don’t have to give me an answer today.”

She would almost say he looked relieved. Was Warren truly in love with her?

“I—I’ll think about it,” she promised him.

She invited him to dinner, and the conversation turned to other things. Gradually she was able to relax again in his company and almost forget the proposal she’d just received. Warren seemed in no hurry for an answer.

She felt as if she’d been given a reprieve. Even though the June 30 deadline loomed.

Silas took out his sailboat at twilight, needing a place to think. He left the harbor behind and sailed beyond the last point of land, beyond the small islands skirting the coast, until he came to a large bay. It was past eight o’clock and the sky was still light, although the sun was sinking low.

The sails luffed as the wind suddenly stilled, then they, too, fell silent. The sea was a perfectly calm expanse. He looked toward the horizon of sea and sky. It came to him that God’s grace was something like that—a vast, incalculable gift.

Pastor McDuffie had told him, “You’ve treated Winslow better than he’s deserved. You did this for his daughter’s sake, didn’t you?”

Silas hadn’t been able to deny that, although he hadn’t said anything in reply.

“What if you did it for love of Jesus?” the pastor had challenged him, explaining to him about being a blessing to Winslow. “‘Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’”

Silas remembered the sermon about offering his body a living sacrifice. He had gone back and read the verse in his Bible. “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” The words that had sounded so extreme to him when he’d first heard them from the pulpit now jolted him by their last five words.
Which is your reasonable service.
What God was asking was something He considered merely reasonable.

Silas thought of the piles of bills and coins hidden away in his old room above the boat shop.

He had it in his power to hand it all over to Winslow.

He could give up his dream. All those years of working and saving. Had they been in vain? Had he been fooling himself? Was the day of the sailing ship over? Silas spied the Eastport steamer trudging past him on the far horizon on its way south
to Portland. Had he been born twenty years too late? Is that what shipbuilding was becoming—turning out big, ugly, barge-like vessels? He was a man of wood and sail. Would there be no place for him and his craft in this world?

When the steamer had disappeared and everything lay once again still and calm, his thoughts turned to Cherish.

It would be easy to hand over his life’s savings to Winslow if he thought of it as a gift to Cherish. It came to him that he would give his life for Cherish. The fact sank in as he realized how much he loved her. Without her, the money meant nothing.

He turned his face westward toward the coastline. The sun was a fiery phosphorescent orange ball, only half visible, the other half already below the hilly line of trees.

Suddenly a still, small voice came to him. Would he give his life for his Savior?

Your reasonable service.

Is that what his Christian service came to—giving up his life for his Savior?

He thought long and hard about his Christian walk. He’d always gone to church because he was made to; he’d brought his offerings, he’d tried to do right by his fellow man—look how he’d submitted to Winslow. Wasn’t all that enough?

Suddenly all those efforts seemed just that—efforts. Not things done out of love, but obligations fulfilled in order to feel right. He’d satisfied Pastor McDuffie with his Sunday attendance; he’d satisfied Cherish by accompanying her to choir practice; he’d satisfied his employer and Mrs. Sullivan by living a clean, upright life.

In that moment all his service appeared “as filthy rags,” as Cherish had remarked. What was it Jesus had called the Pharisees? Whitewashed sepulchres? Silas found himself comparing himself to them. He’d always listened to those Sunday-school lessons and thought how hypocritical those Pharisees were with their external worship. They were the ones who’d ended up crucifying Jesus.

Silas saw himself covered with the same filth—his behavior outwardly holy, when his heart had never been engaged.

He stared at the skyline where the sun had sunk and dusk was beginning to penetrate.
But who are You, Lord? How do I get to know You?

When he returned to the parsonage, he asked Pastor McDuffie where he should begin reading his Bible. McDuffie showed no surprise at the question, but immediately turned to the book of John and handed the Bible back to him.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….”

The following night after dinner Tom Winslow told Cherish he wanted to talk to her. She looked across the table in alarm. “Is something wrong, Papa?”

“No. In fact, it’s good news I want to share with you.”

What could it be? She rose from the table and began to help Aunt Phoebe clear the dishes.

“You go on with your father. It’s important.”

More and more intrigued, Cherish followed her father to his large cherrywood desk.

Her father handed her a bulky envelope. He waited as she turned it over, trying to figure out what it contained.

“Fifteen hundred dollars,” he told her. “Open it and see.”

She undid the clasp. She could hear the sound of coins rattling inside, but still couldn’t help gasping when she peeked inside. A thick pile of bills was stuffed into it, with gold and silver coins jammed in alongside.

“That should satisfy the bank to give us an extension at least until we can get the final five hundred.”