Desperate, she tried to shield her heart from his passionate words and turn away. But he stepped around her and blocked her path. “Tell me you do not love me, Eden. Tell me that.”
“I—” She choked back a sob. The lie hovered on her tongue. She nearly mentioned Giles Esh but couldn’t bear to see the hurt it would bring him. “I care enough to let you go—to wish better things for you—”
“For me? What about you? Am I to believe you’re to throw your life away on a place you loathe? And people like Elspeth, who despises you? Who wishes you harm? Who might well have hurt her own child? Wheest, Eden! Speak sense!”
She covered her face with her hands, tears wetting her fingers, fearful Elspeth or Papa would overhear. “I belong here—my place is at home, at Hope Rising.”
“At Hope Rising?” The words were so barbed it seemed he spat them at her. “Did Greathouse sway you into staying? Is that it? And for what? His spinning operation? Or is there more?” Anguish wet his eyes. “Am I to believe you’re as false as your mother and sister? You make me think ’tis Greathouse you love, that you got into that carriage with the hope of being his mistress if not his wife—”
“Nay!” The word rang out with the force of a gunshot, echoing to the far corners of the smithy. Catching up her skirts, she fled, the door banging in her wake. Down the lane she ran, seeking asylum at Margaret’s, painfully aware Silas would think she was fleeing to Hope Rising, giving credence to all he’d just said.
Eden awoke against her will, buried in the feathery warmth of Margaret’s bolster, the bed curtains drawn against the cold. Snow lined the windowpane, and everything beyond was a glittering, blinding world of white. Today marked Silas’s leaving, their hoped-for wedding day. Instead she was to marry another, not knowing for another month or more if she was to be a mother, and if so, just whose child she carried.
David’s . . . or Giles’s?
The thought of being with a man so soon after being used by David left her shaking and sick. She felt feverish again, a swell of misery expanding inside her with every tick of the clock. When she’d dressed, Margaret, also clad in deep black for Jemma, made her a cup of chamomile tea, but she couldn’t swallow a sip.
“Eden, thee are clearly not thyself. And I confess I do not understand thy situation. A man awaits thee—one thee do not love—while the man who clearly loves thee is leaving today, never to return.” Margaret looked into her eyes with heightened candor. “Once you asked what I thought of Silas Ballantyne. I’ll tell thee this. One finds such a man once in a lifetime if thee are truly blessed.”
The words, though weighted with warning and far more vehement than Margaret’s usual utterances, failed to dent Eden’s resolve. She steeled herself against the truth of them and heard herself say, “Silas is an uncommon man. I’ve no doubt he’ll make his mark wherever he goes. He deserves far better than York.” Turning her back so Margaret couldn’t see her intense struggle, she began putting on her cape. “I need some air. ’Tis time I see Jemma’s grave—and Jon’s.”
“But ’tis snowing—and growing colder.” Margaret started to rise. “Let me go with thee.”
“Nay—please—I’ll not be long.” She raised her hood over her head and pulled on her mittens. The simple act elicited a strange hurt. Did Silas have gloves? ’Twas so cold and he would go so far . . .
“Take care to return soon.” Margaret was hovering now, already adding wood to the fire. “I’ll keep thy tea warm.”
Eden stepped outside, nearly blinded by the bright beauty.
Wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.
She’d been cleansed of sin by believing in her Savior. Would He not, in time, cleanse her of the sins committed against her? Or must she always feel . . . defiled? Tears froze on her face as she walked, her gaze averted from Hope Rising’s brick façade, fastening instead on the church atop the rise as if it were an anchor in the swirling storm.
’Twas early. The landscape yawned empty. No one was about at such an hour. All stayed huddled by their hearths, seeking warmth after a shivering night. Smoke puffed from the smithy chimney, but she veered away from it, crossing fields and fences, secure in the knowledge that she was alone. The willow in the far field beckoned, its ice-clad arms bent low over a lone grave. Her throat grew tighter the closer she came.
Oh, Jon, I loved you so.
A wooden cross poked through the new-fallen snow, straight and solemn. Silas had taken care to fashion it, the babe’s name carved in careful letters. Time and the elements would soon erase it, but the lovely if lonely image would never leave her. Kneeling, she uttered a quiet prayer.
Slowly she turned back toward Hope Rising. The snow was unbroken across field and road till she started uphill. A lone horseman had recently passed this way, the hoofprints clearly marked. Silas. Her heart, so ravaged and torn, seemed about to burst. Through a whirl of wind and blowing snow, she changed direction, walking westward till the tracks grew so faint she could not follow.
When she looked up again, she felt lost. All was white, windswept, radiant as a bride. Her hands and feet, benumbed by cold, no longer seemed to belong to her. Her cape was an icy white, her boots blocks of ice. Would that her heart could feel the same . . .
Yet nothing mattered but that Silas was free.
She continued on, unsure of where she was. Nothing looked familiar. In time a welcome warmth stole over her and she grew sleepy. The air beneath the pine she huddled against was sharp and sweet. She dreamed she heard a violin.
Her last thought was of him.
33
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying.
Robert Herrick
Philadelphia
April 1793
The spring sky was a brazen banner of pink and gold, deserving attention, but Eden’s gaze was fixed on the stone steps at her feet. As she stepped out the foundling hospital’s front door to greet the dawn, she took a bracing breath. In the profound quiet she could detect a lingering sense of loss—an almost palpable heartache. Nearly every morning her response to the poignant sight awaiting her was the same. As she knelt among baskets, boxes, and crates, the newborns within became a crying, cooing blur. Thankfully, a handkerchief was always on hand, as was her assistant, Betsy Simms.
“God be praised, Miss Lee! Only three this morning, I see.”
Only three. Eden expelled a relieved breath. Once nine had been waiting. Rarely was there but one. A small sign near the courtyard’s entrance instructed mothers to attach an identifying token in the unlikely event they returned to claim their child. None did. Still, Eden was careful to pin each offering to the baby’s admission billet, marveling at the variety. Lush scraps of velvet. Lumpy wool. Sheer slips of ribbon. Buttons. Tiny pieces of embroidery in multihued thread. A bit of verse in an unknown hand.
Her painstaking care was one of the qualities that had propelled her from a fledgling assistant to assistant director of the Philadelphia Foundling Hospital six years before. That, and the fact her predecessors had all married or been buried as she quietly and competently performed her duties round the clock, becoming a favorite of staff and children alike. Stephen Elliot, the board’s president, once remarked, “If only we could collect and keep competent hands like Miss Lee’s the way we collect foundlings each and every morning.”
But such praise did not turn Eden’s head, nor elevate her in the slightest degree. The hospital board’s premise was plain: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Surrounded by Friends who lived out this principle from Scripture day by day, she found it easy enough to emulate. Yet deep down, Eden couldn’t escape the niggling certainty that her position had more to do with her Greathouse connections than her own competence.
“Ah, this one looks a mite peaked,” Betsy crooned, examining the tiny boy cocooned in a tattered blanket. “Needs a bit more nourishment, looks like, to set him right.”
“A great deal more.” Eden bit her lip in contemplation. “It mat
ters not that we have the best record for saving babies from Boston to Charleston. We still lose far too many.”
Though the hospital was renowned for its staff and procedures, half the infants perished within a few weeks of arrival. Those who thrived continued to be suckled by wet nurses and cared for by nursery staff till they were of age to begin their schooling. Eden had been there long enough to see a few of the babies she’d gathered off the steps apprenticed to tradesmen, the girls prepared for service in fine Philadelphia houses. But she most remembered the babies they’d lost.
“He simply needs a mother’s arms,” Eden said as Betsy passed the whimpering boy to her before attending to the girls in the admitting room just inside the hospital doors.
Gently Eden removed his soiled clout, murmuring soothing words all the while. Cornflower-blue eyes looked up at her—so like Jon’s her throat tightened. Around his tiny neck was a faded silk ribbon, which she attached to his admission papers. A warm bath awaited, followed by a linen gown, snug cap, and clean blanket. This was her favorite part of the work.
As she made her rounds and supervised the staff, she often returned to the nursery and rocked the babies herself. After a few weeks, the infants seemed to recognize her, rewarding her with wide smiles and outstretched arms. If she couldn’t have her own children, she had these, she reasoned. Sometimes that seemed enough.
“What shall we name them?” Eden mused aloud, more to herself than Betsy.
“You’re fond of biblical names, and glad I am of that.” Betsy placed the baby girls together in a portable crib, ready to whisk them to a feeding. “Why not call the lad Daniel? He’s in need of a strong namesake.”
“Daniel it is. As for the girls, the fair one shall be Ruth, and the dark-haired one Naomi.” The latter name brought a little pang. Bringing the whimpering boy to her chest, she struggled to push the unwelcome memory down.
“Worthy names, all,” Betsy said in a sort of benediction. “Seems like our Daniel is ready for Peggy Grimes’s milk. She has enough for all three, from the look of her this morn. Here, let me take him.”
Pensive, Eden watched the door swing shut in Betsy’s wake before consulting the calendar she carried in her pocket. ’Twas Monday, and every hour was taken, beginning with a board meeting and then rounds with the doctors. Next was overseeing a delivery of linens and laudanum and, she recalled with a sigh, tiny caskets. Twin girls, shockingly premature when they’d arrived at the hospital’s door, had died soon after and were to be buried in the hospital’s cemetery. The chaplain, Betsy had reminded her moments ago, was on his way.
Hours later, as the clock in the hospital’s entrance hall struck six and the streetlamps were lit, Eden walked from the furthest reaches of Prince Street to her boardinghouse at Fourth and Walnut, spirits low and head aching. The supper smells wafting from Mistress Payne’s kitchen issued an invitation she was too tired to accept, unlike the noisy boarders already at table.
Shutting the front door as quietly as she could, she collected her mail from a table at the foot of the stairs before ascending to the second floor. A quick perusal confirmed it was more the post than her throbbing head that now stole her appetite. Letters from home, though rare, resurrected a host of unwelcome memories.
Her tiny wallpapered sitting room and bedchamber were dark, the door to the balcony ajar. She backtracked to the hall and lit a taper from a sconce before shutting the door and returning to the letter. In the pale orb of candlelight, the familiar handwriting was terse if heartfelt.
Dear Daughter,
’Tis been a while since I have written. Liege is unwell.
Eden sighed. Unwell or inebriated?
Thomas and Elspeth man the smithy in his stead.
She stared at the paper without focus, trying to recall the little brother who’d been but three when she left and was now . . . eleven?
I am still taking eggs and cheese to Hope Rising each week. Margaret sends her warmest wishes.
This never failed to make her smile. Mayhap the Lord did redeem difficult situations. She was glad for Mama, for Margaret—she missed them both. But pondering such things opened the door to the past and everything she’d tried so valiantly to forget.
The aching cold. The heartache of it all.
Would she never make peace with Silas’s leaving? When she’d gone to Jon’s grave and nearly frozen to death? To this day she had no feeling in her fingertips. If not for Sebastian, she would have died that snowy afternoon. He’d led the search party to her and then disappeared.
There had been no wedding to Giles Esh. No illegitimate child. Neither had she gone home again. Mama had come to Margaret’s, where Eden recuperated from frostbite and a lingering fever, and somehow, miraculously, the two had resumed their foundered friendship.
She looked again at the letter.
You may know that Master David has taken a bride. Her name is Angelica, and she’s just arrived at Hope Rising . . .
The paper fluttered from Eden’s hand to the floor, the feel of it like poison. She nudged it into the ashes of the hearth, where it would serve as kindling come morning, and returned her attention to the rest of the post.
A scarlet seal foretold an invitation to a May ball. Another, from Beatrice Greathouse, requested Eden be a godmother. She set them aside, thoughts adrift. Bea had borne her sixth child a fortnight before. Shortly before that, Anne had married. And now . . . David. She tried to summon some fine feeling, some spark of pleasure for their good fortune, yet all she felt was emptiness.
Happiness, she’d long since decided, was something that happened to other people.
34
An honest man’s the noblest work of God.
Alexander Pope
Pittsburgh
April 1793
The two rivers hemming him in, Silas decided, were akin to the currents at work within his soul. The Monongahela, deep and still, flowed past like blue silk while the Allegheny foamed and churned, ever fitful. Of late Silas had felt more like the latter.
He hung a lantern from an iron hook along the moonlit dock. The light cast a broad beam across the water, a beacon for vessels traveling at night, and illuminated a sturdy wooden shingle: Ballantyne Boatworks. In time he hoped to replace it with something more substantial.
Ballantyne Ironworks.
When he’d first come to Pittsburgh, he’d been but a blacksmith fresh from the East, a hireling of Fort Pitt. Now he paid men to work iron in his stead. With a steady stream of settlers pushing west, his time was better spent building boats. Keelboats. Flatboats. Schooners. Sloops. He pored over plans by night and oversaw a dozen men in construction by day, working alongside them amidst the ever-present distillation of freshly sawn lumber, river water, and pitch.
His gaze swung from the night watchman he’d hired as a precaution against trouble to the dog nuzzling his hand. A cold west wind was keening, and the air smelled storm-damp, heightening his disquiet. “We’ve a long walk, Sebastian,” he said, “and the weather is about to turn ugsome.”
He’d considered spending the night on a cot in his waterfront office, but the lure of the tavern atop Grant’s Hill was too great. He had rooms there, and Jean Marie, the French émigré who owned it, employed the finest cook this side of the Allegheny Mountains.
“Send for the sheriff at the first sign of trouble,” he told the barrel-chested Irishman who stood near the locked office door. “I’ll not be long behind.”
Turning his back on his livelihood, he committed it to the Lord’s hands and started up the hill, a Scots saying trailing him.
Sorrow and ill weather come unsent for.
Mayhap he was about to get a bit of both.
Although the dining room of Grant’s Tavern was empty, a corner table held a steaming plate, a chill tankard, and the latest copy of the Pittsburgh Gazette. Just like every night Silas could remember for the past five years. Jean Marie had a particular talent for anticipating her patrons’ needs, thus making her the most popular innke
eper in Allegheny County.
He shrugged off his greatcoat, draped it over a chair back, and took a seat, eyes drawn to the window at his elbow. From here he had an eagle’s view of the valley now aglitter with candlelight far below. Night had drawn a benevolent curtain over a crude assortment of brick and timber houses, never-ending mud, prodigious wharf rats, and more. Yet Silas felt at home in every foot of it, raw as it was. He had a foretaste of what Pittsburgh, not yet a town, would someday become.
“Ah, Monsieur Ballantyne . . .”
The accented voice echoed across the room, holding a warm if weary note of welcome. Jean Marie swept through the foyer doorway, looking more mature Philadelphia belle than Pittsburgh tavern keeper. The copper silk of her gown shimmered in the low light, and her eyes shone with good humor. “I have fed the ravenous Sebastian.”
“Merci,” Silas said, eyeing the dish of apple tansy she set down. “You don’t have to wait supper on us, ye ken.”
“And why not? You are my best boarder, no?”
“Your most tardy,” he said contritely.
“Did I ever tell you that you work too hard?”
“Aye, nearly every eve.”
“Yet you pay me no attention.” When he motioned to the seat opposite, she took it, work-worn hands folded atop the table. “You need a home, a family. You need to be married to something besides boats.”
Silas cut a bite of steak, eyes on his plate. “D’ye have someone in mind?”
“No, but you do, surely.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “What is this I hear about a ton of bricks being hauled out the river road to your new property? Word is you’re getting ready to build a house . . . for a bride.”
He forked the bite of steak to his mouth, chewing thoughtfully, and smiled back at her with his eyes. “A ton of bricks does not make a bride.”
“Oh, you Scotsmen are so stubborn!” Exasperation lit her features. “You’ve a brick head—and heart. Would that I could give you a measure of French passion, convince you of the finer aspects of life and family.”