Sweet Forever (3 page)
In the year since he and Orville Whitaker had begun holding services in Opal Buchanan’s boardinghouse, their congregation had doubled from an average of ten to twenty. “I’ve planned the sanctuary of the new church to accommodate over one hundred. Orville always told me to never limit God. ‘Think big, build big, and He will fill it big.’ ”
Andrew nodded. “Amen to that, Rev’rend. The Lord’ll provide the crop. It’s up to us to do the harvestin’.”
The resurgence of a nagging concern caused Jacob’s smile to sag with his heart. The relentless doubt that constantly gnawed at his confidence whispered its insidious charge.
You’ve not had one convert since Orville’s death
.
Perhaps this is not your calling. Perhaps God has not anointed you.
Adding to his uncertainty, the one person he’d worked the hardest to bring into the fold continued to resist his efforts. Rosaleen Archer always seemed to find something else she needed to do on Sunday mornings rather than attend his services.
Andrew’s chest puffed out with pride. “Well, reckon me and Patsey are doin’ our part to add another soul to our church up at Georgetown. The babe oughta be comin’ along in the fall, ’bout the time we get your church built.”
“Be fruitful and multiply, Andrew.” Jacob chuckled, giving his friend a slap on the back.
How wonderful it would be to have a helpmate.
Before, thoughts of marriage had conjured little more than a vague idea in Jacob’s mind—a faceless lady offering support, love, and an equal commitment to winning souls for the Lord as she worked tirelessly by his side. Three weeks ago, that image had been given a face.
The fact that Rosaleen showed no sign of interest in the Lord, or His work, caused a painful tug-of-war inside Jacob. He understood her pain and respected her loss. But living in the same boardinghouse, exposed to her beauty and industry day after day, he could not deny his attraction to the lovely young widow.
The words of 2 Corinthians 6:14 tortured Jacob’s mind and heart:
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers.
If only she’d come once and hear the Word.
If only. . .
“Patsey says she needs more wood for the kitchen stove, Andrew.”
Jacob’s head jerked with his heart. Heat spread from his neck to his face. The subject of his thoughts stood in the parlor doorway. Rich brown tendrils had escaped her snowy daycap and curled appealingly against her rosy cheeks.
Laughing, Andrew shook his head and walked toward the kitchen. “That woman ain’t content ’less I’m either choppin’ or fetchin’ wood.”
Rosaleen turned to follow Andrew.
“Rosaleen. . .” His heart thumping, Jacob managed her name, stopping her at the threshold between the door and hallway.
She turned back to face him with a questioning look.
“I’m hoping that maybe you could put aside time tomorrow morning to attend services. I’ve prepared a sermon dealing with God’s peace and love in times of grief. I thought if you’re ready, it might help. . . .” Fearing he was completely botching the invitation, Jacob’s heart lifted when she rewarded his attempt with a sad, sweet smile.
“Reverend Hale, I’m sure it is a very fine sermon.” The touch of her hand on his forearm sent shivers racing to Jacob’s shoulder. “I just don’t see any sense to it. I mean, I don’t see what good the scriptures could do
me
.”
“Oh, Rosaleen, just open your heart. God wants to comfort you. All of us here want to comfort you, too.”
The tears welling in her beautiful blue-green eyes ripped at his heart.
Please, Lord, give me the words.
“Won’t you just come and listen?”
“I don’t know,” she answered just above a whisper.
He watched her lovely lips tremble as a tear slipped down her cheek. It took all his strength to not pull her into his arms. Instead, he clasped her hands in his. “I hope you will consider it.” He forced a smile. “I’d love to see you in the congregation.”
Disappointment twanged inside him when she pulled her hands from his, turned, and left the parlor.
❧
In the darkness of her tiny attic room, Rosaleen sat bolt upright on her straw mattress. A cold sweat beaded on her forehead, and her breath came in painful puffs. Someone had screamed. She hugged the voluminous nightdress against her shaking body and realized her own throat had made the awful sound.
“Rosaleen? Rosaleen, are you all right?” Jacob Hale’s frantic plea came from just outside her door.
“I–I’m fine.” She fought to keep her voice steady. “Just a night terror.”
“Would you like to talk?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine. I’m fine.”
Fine
in no way described how Rosaleen felt. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to share with Jacob Hale the horrors that had caused her screams. He considered her a respectable widow. She loathed the thought of shattering that image. However, just hearing his voice and knowing he stood outside her door helped to chase away the terror lurking in the dark corners of her mind.
“If you’re sure you’re all right. . .” The hesitancy in his voice caused a sweet ache deep inside her.
She heard a flurry of footfalls on the steps leading to her attic room, followed by Opal Buchanan’s concerned voice. “What’s wrong?”
“Just a nightmare, Mrs. Buchanan. Everything is fine.” Rosaleen could hear Jacob’s quiet voice reassuring Opal, interrupted by Tobias Stilwell’s surly tone.
“Can’t get a decent night’s sleep around this place. Thought somebody’d been murdered.” The salesman’s deep-throated grumble faded down the creaking stairway.
“Rosaleen, dear. If there’s anything you need. . .”
“No, thank you, Opal. I’m fine. I’m sorry I bothered everyone’s sleep.”
“Nonsense, dear. You’ve been through an awful experience. The steamboat. . .your husband. . .” Opal’s voice faltered with her attempt at consolation.
Quiet, unintelligible whispers preceded the sound of Opal’s slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs.
“Any time you need to talk, I’m here.”
“Thank you, Reverend. I’m sorry I—”
“Any time, Rosaleen.” She heard a smile creep into his voice. “Please call me Jacob. I much prefer it.”
“Thank you. . .Jacob.”
Long after the sound of his footsteps had faded away, she shifted on her mattress, sleep eluding her. She’d tried to ignore her attraction to the handsome young minister, but with each passing day, his grasp on her heart grew tighter.
Didn’t he know she was irretrievably beyond the realm of salvation? Reverend Wilfred Maguire had called her “irredeemable—the wicked by-blow of a harlot.” Surely, he—the minister of a huge church in Natchez, Mississippi—knew the scriptures better than a poor, young backwoods preacher.
If God rejects me, then I shall reject God!
Rosaleen squeezed her eyes shut tight against the tears oozing through her lashes. For all she knew, nothing but oblivion awaited her beyond this life. So she must make the best of it—find what happiness she could while she lived.
She patted the place in the mattress where she’d made a small slit and pushed in the calico pouch holding her three-week earnings. The reassuring
clink
of coins rubbing against one another lent a measure of hope to her heart.
When she’d earned enough money, she must make her way to Maestro Levitsky in New York and her dream of becoming a concert pianist.
Besides, she had no way of knowing for sure if Bill McGurty had survived the accident or gone down with the steamboat. Perhaps he was looking for her on the Kentucky side of the river—or he could be in Madison this very minute. A shudder wriggled through her.
Anyway, the last place he’d expect to find me would be in the company of churchgoing people.
Calmed by the thought, she reached into the slit in the mattress. Feeling through the prickly straw, she wrapped her fingers around the sack that held her hope.
“That man o’ mine sure outdid hisself with this mess of squirrels.” Patsey beamed at the two large crocks filled with butchered squirrel parts covered in brine.
From the first day Jacob brought her to Opal Buchanan’s boardinghouse, Rosaleen had found a true friend in Patsey Chapman. In fact, Mrs. Buchanan’s pretty hired girl with skin the color of rich cocoa had welcomed her with open arms. About her own age, with an unquenchable, bubbly personality, Patsey had helped Rosaleen reclaim the joy of being young.
“I’ve never eaten squirrel.” Rosaleen lobbed a spoonful of lard into the hot cast-iron skillet on the stove, unsure of how she felt about the supper entrée.
“Then you’re in for a real treat. I growed up on squirrel down where I come from. It’s gener’ly my favorite. But right now”—she laughed as she patted the mound beneath her calico apron—“I cain’t even abide the smell of meat.”
“You’re not from here?”
“No.” A dusty white cloud rose as Patsey dumped a handful of squirrel into another crockery bowl filled with flour and seasoning. Her bright, dark eyes grew round, and her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “My mammy an’ me ’scaped from Williamsburg, Kentucky, and come up here on the Railroad a couple years ago.”
Rosaleen realized she wasn’t talking about any sort of conveyance that moved on rails. She’d heard whispers of the Underground Railroad in the month she’d been in Madison and suspected the town was a stop on escaped slaves’ routes north to Canada. She’d learned that the Georgetown district where Patsey and Andrew lived, just two blocks east of the boardinghouse, was the free black section of town. There, men like the barber, George de Baptiste, and the blacksmith, Elijah Anderson, were leaders in the work of the Underground. She also suspected that Mrs. Buchanan actively helped in the humanitarian effort.
“When we got here to the Georgetown district, Andrew was one of ’em helpin’ to find us places to stay and food to eat.” Her teeth flashed like pearls amid the grin stretching her rosy brown cheeks. “He was the finest-lookin’ man I ever did see.”
Rosaleen grinned. “Then it was love at first sight?”
“Was for me.” Patsey smiled. “And I reckon I’d have pined the rest of my life for him if I hadn’t took sick with a fever, keepin’ me and Mammy from movin’ on to the next station. We stayed a month with Andrew and his folks till my fever passed.”
“And you and Andrew fell in love?”
Patsey nodded, her smile quirking into a grin. “Andrew wouldn’t admit it, but I think he was feared o’ lovin’ me, knowin’ I’d be movin’ on.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” Her brow creased, and Rosaleen could see she was remembering the emotional struggle. “Mammy begged me to go on with her up north to Indianapolis. Said this was way too close to the line.”
Rosaleen knew that along this stretch of the Ohio, the river itself was the line between slave and free country. Many whites here were more than willing to turn blacks over to their slaveholders for the bounty.
“But when Andrew got up the nerve and asked me to stay and jump the broom with him, I couldn’t say no.” Patsey’s face lit and her eyes sparkled with love. “Never been sorry. He’s as purty inside as out,” she said grinning. Handing Rosaleen the crock of floured squirrel, she shot her a curious glance. “Did you love your man?”
Unprepared for the question, Rosaleen allowed a long moment of silence while she busied herself positioning the sizzling meat in the skillet with extra care. “No.” She felt a pang of guilt at the whispered word.
The question had been one she’d shied away from for a long time. She glanced at Patsey’s face, still glowing at the mere mention of Andrew.
Rosaleen thought of the man thirteen years her senior to whom she’d been wed for six short weeks. Although he had been a kind and gentle husband, thoughts of Donovan Archer had never quickened her heart. Since her father’s death, the short time she’d spent with Donovan had been the one brief splash of contentment in her life. But in her heart she knew she’d never felt true love for him.
“You’re young. You got plenty of time.” The kind, almost pitying tone of Patsey’s voice caused Rosaleen to blink away tears.
Nodding, Rosaleen felt a stab of envy.
Patsey’s voice took on a teasing lilt. “I done seen the way Rev’rend Hale looks at you. His eyes goin’ all moon-calf-like. Done seen the way you look at him, too.” She danced around the little kitchen in an exaggerated sashay, holding out the sides of her calico skirt with dusty hands. “Jis a few winks and nods, and you’d have him askin’ you to jump the broom.”
“Patsey Chapman!” Heat that had nothing to do with the frying pan rushed to Rosaleen’s face. Had she been so transparent about her feelings for Jacob? Could Patsey be right about Jacob? It didn’t matter. Unlike Patsey, she couldn’t stay. “I have no designs on Reverend Hale, and I’m sure he has no interest in me that way either.”
Patsey gave an indelicate snort and laughed. “Well, you have it your way, but I jis know what I done seen, that’s all.” Then, with a low moan, she waved her hand at the gamy meat and sage-laced steam rising from the skillet. Holding her stomach with one hand, she pressed the other against her mouth. “Lord, help me! I cain’t abide another minute of that smell,” she mumbled through her hand. “I best peel these taters outside.” Snatching a wooden bowl full of potatoes from the table, she retreated toward the kitchen door.
Gazing through the open door, Rosaleen watched the young woman settle herself on a stool beneath an oak tree to pare the potatoes. She told herself that Patsey’s notion sprang simply from her romantic imagination, yet there was a part of her that hoped it hadn’t.
❧
“Mmm, squirrel.” Jacob inhaled deeply when Rosaleen brought the platter heaped with the golden brown pieces of meat to the supper table. “I’ve been looking forward to this since Andrew told me what luck he’d had hunting.”
Rosaleen’s heart quickened beneath Jacob’s lingering gaze.
“Smells like you’ve done a wonderful job with them,” Jacob commented to her.
“And how do you know Patsey didn’t cook these?” His bright blue eyes fixed on hers drained the strength from her arms, and she hurried to set down the platter.