Page 9 of The Pursuit of Elena Bradford
9
A couple of weeks passed, one pleasant day after another. Elena danced at night with a parade of partners. At least once with Kirby Frazier and once with Andrew Harper. And always twice with General Dawson. She had become more adept at keeping her toes away from the general’s feet and actually began to enjoy the stories the old man liked to tell. He seemed to come up with a new one for every dance.
Ivy didn’t share Elena’s patience with the general. As they shed their finery after Thursday’s dance, she rubbed her feet. “My poor toes. I wasn’t able to avoid old General Dawson tonight. I’ll have to soak my feet in Dr. Graham’s mineral water.” She looked up at Elena. “You danced with him twice. I don’t know how you do it. You should feign illness when he heads your way. You can be sure I’ll do that next time he wants to dance with me.”
“But how will you explain a fast recovery that allows you to dance with the next gentleman who asks? I notice you rarely sit out a dance.” Elena looked at her with raised eyebrows.
“He’s so old he’d probably never notice. Besides, I think you are his favorite partner.” Ivy smiled up at Elena.
“You should be nice to him. The poor man doesn’t intend to trample your toes, and he always has a great story to tell. He’s had an amazing life.”
“Because he’s ancient,” Ivy said.
Their mother looked around from the mirror where she was undoing her hair bun before bed. “Really, Ivy. He’s not that much older than I am. Do you think I’m ancient too?”
Ivy stared down at her feet as she muttered, “Of course not, Mother.”
Mother sighed with a smile. “I think that means you do, but life isn’t over simply because one passes fifty, although I think General Dawson might be closer to sixty. Anyway, he seems to have plenty of life yet. I’m told the general lost his wife a couple of years ago and has stayed here at the Springs as much as possible since then. Lonely, I suppose. Some say he’s thinking of remarrying.” She peered over at Elena. “It’s good that he has taken to you, dear, and you to him.”
Elena was too stunned to speak for a moment. She swallowed hard and found her voice. “You can’t mean you’ve put him on your list.” Her mother had been making a list of potential marriage candidates.
“Not my list. Your list.”
“You can’t be serious, Mother.” Elena stared at her mother. “He is, as Ivy just pointed out, old.”
“But he is very comfortably well off. One of the richest men here, I’ve been told.”
Elena sank down on the bed. It was one thing to agree to marriage as a way to shore up their family finances when it was naught but words and one could imagine a potentially strong husband like Kirby Frazier. Romance could be part of such a match. But General Dawson?
“He’s old enough to be my grandfather.” Elena’s voice was faint.
Ivy sat on the bed and put an arm around Elena. “Mother can’t mean for you to entertain him as a suitor.”
Mother continued to brush out her hair. “I don’t know why the two of you sound so upset. May-December weddings often work out famously. And at any rate, if the man is so tottering old and such a union was formed between you and the general, the marriage might not last long.” She looked over at Elena again. “Once he passes away, you would be free to marry whomever you liked with the security of a generous inheritance.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “Unlike how your father left me.”
“Mother, you can’t expect Elena to—”
“That’s quite enough.” Mother cut off Ivy’s words. “I can and do expect much from both you and Elena. I don’t think either of you has grasped the severity of our situation. It is time to forget your foolish romantic notions and face reality.” She pointed her brush at Ivy. “And that includes your dalliance with that Pennington boy.”
Ivy gasped and stiffened beside Elena. “It’s not a dalliance. We love each other.”
“Love is for those who can afford it. Or for those who care nothing about having the finer things of life.” She dropped her brush on the bureau with a clatter and came to stand in front of them. “Jacob’s father has gone deeply in debt to send his boys to those eastern schools. They are in as precarious a situation as we are. Your father told me so after I noted you slipping away to meet that boy. I should have put an end to your relationship months ago, but with your father’s death, I let things slide. Obviously, a mistake on my part.”
Tears streamed down Ivy’s face. “I don’t care about what you call ‘the finer things.’ Not if it means I have to forget Jacob.”
“Shh.” Elena pulled her closer to her side.
Mother reached out and touched Ivy’s face. “I know you believe that now. But I’ve seen you this week. You enjoy the good life here. You are attracting attention from the right sort of suitors the way flowers attract bees. Use your beauty to your advantage.”
“You mean your advantage,” Ivy shot back at her.
“Our advantage.” Mother’s voice softened. “And if Elena does as she has promised and finds a suitable match, perhaps you will be able to follow your heart.”
As she has promised. The word stabbed through Elena. Had she promised? To marry a man like General Dawson? She couldn’t have promised that. But she had been as na?ve as Ivy. What hadn’t been promised by anyone was romantic love.
“Did you never love Father?” Elena asked.
Her mother didn’t look angry about Elena’s question. More sad. “I had your father’s children. I kept his household orderly. I did my best.” She paused and then went on. “We had love. Perhaps not the earthshaking love that you and Ivy seem to think is the only kind of love worth having, but we did have love. The truth is, your father didn’t trust that love. He thought he had to buy it.”
“And he didn’t?” Elena wanted to add that it seemed she had to buy her mother’s love now.
“Of course not. But it wasn’t my love he sought with money we didn’t have. It was yours and Ivy’s and the boys’ love.”
“He knew I loved him.” Elena was sure of that.
“Yes, no doubt he did.” Mother dropped down in a chair beside the bed.
She was still an attractive woman, but with her hair down, the gray overtaking the blonde was more evident. Without her normal commanding expression, the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth appeared deeper. How old she looked stabbed at Elena. Somehow she hadn’t noticed age creeping up on her mother, perhaps because she was usually so firmly put together that she held the years at bay. Now seeing her so vulnerable took away whatever protests Elena thought to make.
Her mother went on, her voice sad. “But poor man never felt he had enough or did enough. Perhaps that was my fault, as you are surely thinking, Elena, but I don’t know what more I could have done other than be a faithful wife. I never wanted him to take advantage of his position at the bank.”
“You don’t think he did anything dishonest.”
“Not intentionally dishonest.” Mother waved away her words with an impatient gesture. “But he did things he shouldn’t have. He approved loans for himself that he knew or should have known he couldn’t repay. He did the same for others. He could be taken in by any hard-luck story. A sick child, a farmer’s dead mule, a woman in tears, any man’s business venture, however unlikely of success, whatever. Your father handed out money without the necessary assurance the bank would be repaid.”
“He is not liable for those bad loans,” Elena said.
“No, only his own.” Her mother shook her head. “Only his own. There was collateral for those. Our home. Add the expense of your father’s funeral.”
“And of this summer here at the Springs.”
A ghost of a smile touched Mother’s lips. “This is an investment.”
“One as risky as any of Father’s ill-advised loans.” Elena pushed that truth at her mother. “Even if I were to attract a suitor, you couldn’t expect him to propose marriage after knowing me only weeks.”
“You underestimate your appeal, my daughter, and a man’s desire for a wife. Certain men, anyway.”
“If only I had the desire for a husband.”
“Whether the desire or the need, you must entertain the possibilities open to you here.” Mother leaned toward Elena, stressing her words. “The atmosphere is perfect for romance.”
“I thought you had ruled out romance as an option.”
“Not at all. You must awaken the romance in someone. The right someone.” She turned to Ivy, who still had tears on her cheeks. She stood and handed her a handkerchief. “Enough of tears. The sun will come up in the morning on a new day. All I ask is that you explore the possibilities, my dear Ivy. And that you, Elena, do the same. Do I have that promise from you both?”
Ivy nodded and got up to hug her mother. Elena turned away from them both and slipped into bed. She pulled the light cover up to shield the lamplight and the sight of her mother’s face. She had already promised too much. She was not about to promise to entertain the possibility of marrying a man old enough to be her grandfather. At least not tonight.
After Mother extinguished the light, Ivy crawled under the covers beside Elena. She scooted close and whispered, “Mother is simply having one of her worrying times. We must be patient with her. Things will work out.”
Elena made no answer.
“We will both pray. Doesn’t the Bible say the Lord will give us the desires of our heart? He knows how I love Jacob.” Ivy patted Elena’s shoulder before turning away. Minutes later, she was asleep.
If only she could have Ivy’s optimism, but unlike her sister, Elena no longer believed in fairy-tale endings where a prince fought through briars and killed dragons to kiss a princess and set the world to rights.
Oh, to be so young to believe love could conquer all. But Elena was almost sure that if she ended up having to kiss a frog, he wouldn’t magically turn into a prince.
Not that the general was a frog. The problem was, she might rather kiss a frog.
Perhaps she should do as Ivy suggested. Pray. The Lord did love his children and want to give them good gifts. The Bible said to ask and it would be given and to seek and whatever was needed could be found.
Since a child, she had said the expected prayers. She shot thankful prayers up silently at times when she saw a rose bejeweled with dew in her father’s garden or when a sunset lit up the western sky, but she hadn’t truly prayed with purpose since she was nine and the twins were born.
At the memory of those prayers, she shifted uneasily in the bed. They had been centered on what she wanted—her mother to recover from the birth so Elena wouldn’t have to see to Ivy. That the twins would stop crying so much. That her father would stop looking frazzled and would sit in his easy chair and share stories from his evening paper the way he had before the boys were born.
Would her prayers now be as selfishly motivated? Let me fall in love with the man of my choice with no thought of my mother. Of my sister and brothers. Surely a better prayer would be to let a man she could love be the answer to her prayers. To her mother’s prayers.
Many men were at the Springs. She could ask the Lord to place the right one in front of her and not give credence to her mother’s thoughts that perhaps he already had. To give her a chance at love. But hadn’t she avoided chances for love in the past? Not avoided exactly. Rather, never known. No boy when she was younger, no man now, had ever truly pursued her. Or was it that she had never given love a chance?
What was love? As a child, the very first Bible verse she learned was God is love . She did believe the Lord loved her, loved the world enough to sacrifice himself for whoever believed in him, as John 3:16 said. Did she have any of that kind of sacrificial love for her family?
As she searched her heart for an answer, the dark of the night pressed down on her. Then another Bible verse came to mind. One her father had sometimes quoted to her mother when she, as Ivy said, was in one of her worrying times. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.
She couldn’t solve her problems tonight. Tomorrow would bring whatever it brought, and she would face it with the Lord’s help. With his love. She pulled the thought of that love up over her like a blanket and slept.
At first light, she awoke almost as if someone had shaken her shoulder. She slipped out of bed to keep from waking Ivy. As quietly as possible she washed her face in the basin with the water the maid brought last night. She pulled on her dress and, without bothering to look in the mirror, brushed back her hair and tied it at the nape of her neck. She didn’t worry about containing every strand as she usually did. With the sun not yet up, she doubted she would meet anyone in the hallways. Once outside, she planned to find an isolated spot in a beautiful place to await the sun.
With her sketchbook and pencil case in hand, she crept out the door. Idly, she wondered if Kirby Frazier would be out before the sun to capture a scene on canvas. She doubted it. Sunsets seemed more to his liking. The sun was generally well up before he set up his easel by the lake, the place he’d chosen to do portraits of the Springs’ guests.
Elena had walked through the gardens in the daytime. She appreciated the skill of the placement of the trees and flowers and the benches that might give those strolling around the grounds wonderful places to stop and rest or simply admire the surroundings.
Now as she made her way to one of the rose gardens, she was glad the pathways were empty. She wanted to be alone. At the garden, she breathed in the sweet-scented air, and memories of her father flooded through her. They didn’t bring tears but smiles as she thought of how he often went out at this same time of day to clip one of the rosebuds to put in a vase for her mother.
He never cut a rose for Elena. Instead, he would leave a note about a particularly beautiful bloom. The white rose with the red blush in the far corner of the garden is ready to pose for you this morning. She always went out to sketch the rose and commit its shadings to memory to paint it later.
Her father loved everything she drew or painted. At least those he saw. She never showed him the portrait of him tending his roses. It was far from perfect, but somehow she had caught the care with which he tended the roses in his contented smile.
When she walked through the gardens on the previous days, she hadn’t even considered sitting down to do a sketch. She had always drawn and painted in the privacy of her father’s garden. Her art meant so much to her, she feared giving others the chance to ridicule her efforts.
Yet she had brought her sketchbook and hadn’t completely denied her desire to paint when Ivy told Kirby Frazier she was an artist. At the time, she’d had no idea he was also on the way to Graham Springs.
That he hadn’t laughed at the idea of her being an artist had made her immediately like him. Still, it could be she should tell Ivy not to share her artistic hopes with whomever she met. Ivy was not prone to silence.
Elena wouldn’t be totally surprised if she blurted out that they were at the Springs to find her practically spinster sister a husband. Elena sighed. She probably didn’t have to. Their mother was doing a fair job of that as she compiled her potential husband list.
The paths through the roses were deserted now, but as soon as the morning meal was done and the waters taken, people would be strolling about the grounds. Elena didn’t mind missing breakfast or the taking of the spring water. Spring water sounded so refreshing, but this mineral water rising up from underground streams carried with it the unpleasant flavor of something deep in the earth. Whatever that was gave it the healing properties many sought, but Elena had no chronic illness to defeat. She would sip the medicinal waters on another day when not so many troubling thoughts had her seeking solitude.
Sketching sometimes could make her worries slide away. Some of those problems marched through her thoughts. General Dawson. The very idea of marrying at all. How Kirby Frazier looking down at her while they danced caused her heart to beat too fast. Ivy so in love that she was embracing the thought of marriage at her very young age. Her mother’s lack of consideration of Elena’s happiness. Andrew Harper’s sad eyes.
The last thought popping into her mind surprised her. Why should Andrew Harper’s unhappy look trouble her thoughts? Ivy might have even been completely wrong about him, but then she had heard Dr. Graham offer condolences about someone named Gloria. He could have been grieving the loss of a loved one. Perhaps that was what made him look so unhappy. A sorrow of the heart.
She shook away thoughts about him. She was here to forget her worries. Not add new ones. She found the perfect bench near a yellow climbing rose so fully in bloom that the bush practically glowed. A pink blush touched the inner petals.
After studying the bush for a moment, she focused on one particular rose that seemed to lift its petals toward the first rays of the sun and began to draw. The pencil in her hand became a connection between the rosebush and her sketch as a cascade of the blooms spilled across her paper. The lines were mere black marks, but in her mind they exploded with color the same as the roses in front of her as the sun rose higher to bathe the bush in its light.
“This is the day the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”
With a start, Elena looked around at Andrew Harper.