A Sweet Lily
Up ahead a lantern was glowing cheerily from a front window even though the hour was late. Marita hoped it was where they were going. Yes! They were turning down the narrow lane leading to the sweet white cottage!
Was that a flower behind those daintily ruffled curtains: a bright red geranium, perhaps?
Even before Mr Sutherland stopped the horse by the garden gate, the front door was flung open by a pleasantly plump grandma-type with snowy white hair. She hustled towards them with wide-open arms.
“Marita!” she cried, giving her a warm embrace. She held her out at arm’s length then gazed into her eyes.
“I have been longing to comfort the girl Randall chose. I just knew any girl Randall loved I would love, too. You have had such a hard time the past few months, and, perhaps I can make it up for you in some way. ”
Marita felt faint.
Mrs Sutherland tipped her chin with a finger. “Randall’s little wife,” she murmured shaking her head and smiling faintly.
She is so lovely, yet seems dejected.
“It grieves me that you had to know pain and suffering at your age. I hope you were able to share with your parents in spite of that awful war going on.” (Marita winced.) “May I be like a second mother to you since yours is so far away?”Marita nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat.
Like a mother? My own never showed such tenderness to me. Randall’s sweet-faced mother beckoned her to come into the kitchen.
There on the small square table, spread with a dazzling white cloth, a very English looking tea awaited them. Marita gasped delightedly.
“I know it’s late but thought you might be hungry after such a long trip. I even remembered to heat the milk that you Englishers’ love to add to your very strong tea. I had to ask around about some of the other details, though. Perhaps you will like it just a little? I so hoped to make you feel a little more at home in our strange back woodsy country.”
“Like it?” Marita gasped, “Oh, Mrs Sutherland, I love it!” She impulsively gave her mother-in-law a heartfelt hug then stepped back, ashamed. Eighteen years had gone by and not once had she ever been tempted to hug her own mother.
“What’s the matter, honey? Is something wrong?”
Marita numbly shook her head.
“Don’t you like cream puffs? They are made from our own Jersey cream but perhaps don’t look near as lovely as what your mother made. Marita winced again,
fancy mum ever making cream puffs, the richest thing she ever made was scones, and that only once!
“… Although I did make them just today-- it was such fun preparing for your arrival. That’s all right if you don’t like something; I want you to feel at home here, not anxious.”
The kettle was whistling merrily so she filled the teapot.
“Or don’t you care for cookies? I frosted them a little before your drove in the yard.” When she smiled, her light blue eyes twinkled and a dimple lurked near the corner of her mouth.
Cookies, Marita did not know what she was referring.
“I, I’m not sure what you are talking about,” she confessed.
“Cookies? Do you not know what cookies are?”
“Do you mean this?” Marita pointed to the neatly arranged pile of iced sugar cookies on a pink plate.
As Lily nodded, Marita reddened. I have to remember that biscuits are ‘cookies’ here in Canada.
“But is everything all right? I hope it’s not all too strange…”
“Oh, Mrs Sutherland, it’s not that—It’s nothing like that at all. Everything is just wonderful, just…too, too…wonderful.”
After thrusting Emily into her grandmother’s unsuspecting arms, she buried her face in her hands and turned away.
At that moment, Ben slammed the back door. He had returned from caring for the horse and wagon.
“What’s that woman crying about now?” he growled brushing a piece of straw off his plaid flannel shirt.
Lily looked bewildered: “I have no idea,”.
“Try not to take your father-in-law’s gruff ways too personally,” she said in a low voice. “He is quite deaf in one ear and suffered from shell shock during the first war.”
Marita’s head jerked up. That’s one possible explanation for his unfriendly behaviour I never thought of.
Mr Sutherland dragged a mint green chair out from beside the table and helped himself to a couple of cookies.
To Marita’s surprise, Lily leaned her hands on Ben’s shoulders, massaging them, and then stroked his greying hair. She murmured something into his good ear, which he must have understood because he nodded.
Marita stared.
She isn’t even afraid of him. Did she know how Ben had kept Randall from writing to her?
Lily soon sat down, however, and while they were sipping tea and munching on treats, gently encouraged her daughter-in-law to tell about the trip, her family and the war.
Marita’s heart overflowed with love towards the woman. She felt safer with her mother-in-law than with Margaret even. It was a healing balm to be sharing with her. Even her husband’s features seemed to soften when he gazed at his wife.
“Just call me Mom or Lily if you’re more comfortable with that,” Mrs Sutherland invited after a while. “My husband’s name is Ben, or perhaps you knew that already?”
Marita nodded. “How do, Ben,” she said self-consciously.
He grunted.
Inevitably, the talk turned to discussing Randall.
Ben’s lips compressed into a tight line when his son was mentioned, his eyes hardened. Marita turned to look at Randall’s mother’s and saw that hers were troubled.
“We’re sorry about Randall ending up in jail,” Lily confided, “and I’m sure he is too. He can be so impulsive, but truly has a tender heart! Maybe you can help him—somehow…” She gestured helplessly with her hands.
Marita couldn’t begin to guess what had happened yet it must have been most dreadful if he had to be imprisoned for it, she was too scared to ask.
Ben soon lumbered off to bed, but Marita and Lily shared into the wee small hours of the morning, which really wasn’t that far away.
Why is it that God has blessed me with such wonderful people in my life if I am just a nobody?” Marita exclaimed while they were washing up the dainty tea dishes together.
“A nobody? My darling child, why would you call yourself that?”
Marita didn’t answer directly but her mother-in-law gently drew her out, and soon she was confiding many seemingly insignificant details of her basically cheerless past. Lily’s heart yearned to find ways to bring joy and comfort to the young girl.
Marita shared quite a lot about Margaret, and as the clock crept past the midnight hour, she shyly confided about praying while travelling through the long dark night.
“That’s wonderful, simply wonderful!” Lily burbled, clasping Marita’s hand. “I prayed and prayed that you would learn to know my Jesus if you didn’t already.
That gives me more courage to believe that Randall might believe someday, also.”
“Life isn’t near so hard when you have a friend like Jesus to take your troubles to.”
The two ladies had gone to sit in the tiny living room while visiting. Each had chosen a comfortable, floral print armchair on either side of the potbellied stove. Lily kept her hands busy knitting a pair of wool socks for her husband while Marita had the baby nestled in her arms.
Emily was in the dreamy borderland between sleep and wakefulness and was making sucking sounds with her lips although her tummy was warmed and filled.
The sweet little innocent caused stirrings of maternal tenderness in the young mother, but a second later, she bit her lip as a shadow clouded her brow. Lily noticed the change in her expression but could not comprehend why.
Eventually Lily saw that Marita’s eyes were falling shut. She felt stricken.
“Here you are so worn out and I’ve been yattering away! I’m sorry, Marit, I’m so sorry.”
Marita barely opened her eyes, barely smiled. Lily hastened to show her to her room. Ben had set the luggage just inside the door and Lily insisted on carrying it all by herself to Randall’s old room, which would be Marita’s for now.
“You have that precious darling to carry, and you’re much too tired to carry anything else,” Lily insisted.
“Not even my handbag?” Marita murmured drolly.
“Well, maybe your purse,” Lily conceded.
When Marita walked into Randall’s old room, a wave of loneliness threatened to overpower her. There was a quilt on the bed made up of a mixture of solid and plaid squares of cotton material. Marita was sure the pieces were from Randall’s shirts although she had never seen him in civilian clothes.
A row of books, much read, was on a shelf next to the corner. Forgetting her tiredness, Marita went over to exam them, eager to see what kinds of stories had interested her husband. There was Black Beauty with its setting partly in dear old London, and David Copperfield by Charles Dickens, but although most of the titles were unfamiliar, even the lingering scent in the room reminded her of her missing husband.
Lily had taken her granddaughter from Marita. Now she gently laid her on the bed in order to remove her wrappings. Emily stirred sleepily while Lily was diapering her but didn’t awaken.
“My, she must be very tired,” Lily remarked, a soft note of longing in her voice. “She makes me think of my own little twins,”
Marita's head jerked up; her mouth dropped open.
“W-what did you say?” she blurted.
“My own little twins: I guess Randall never told you.” She sighed deeply while picking at the lace edging on the little bonnet in her hands.
“They both had lots of dark hair and were so very tiny… Born far too prematurely, so they didn’t make it.” She dabbed at her eyes with the eyelet bonnet.
“My heart still aches when I think of them and the joy they could have brought to our home: two sweet little angels, Rachel and Rhoda. Rachel was the stronger and larger of the two. We hoped she would make it at least. But when Rhoda’s little heart gave out, Rachel seemed to lose the will to live.”
“I don’t know why I’m talking to you about this. I haven’t shared it with anyone for a long time. I guess because you feel so much like family, and you have a baby girl.”
She searched her apron pocket for a hankie.
“We had them sleeping together in a softly padded wicker basket because they were premature. We placed it on the door of the oven to keep them warmer. They’d actually snuggle. You wouldn’t believe it unless you saw it for yourself.”
Marita did believe it, her own girls did the same, and now they were separated, forcibly: by their own mother.
Now Lily was looking into Emily’s eyes and cradling her gently in her arms. “So when Rhoda died, Rachel got restless—in a few hours she turned blue—and we couldn’t, we just couldn’t revive her—I still don’t know why she—they had to go to.” For a moment, she couldn’t continue. “
“It was the dead of winter, February, in fact, and the snow plough rarely comes out this far, so the doctor wasn't able to come.”
Lily was vaguely aware of how white Marita had become, and how increasingly agitated, but hadn’t thought about it until later.
Marita’s hands fumbled as she searched for a nightgown for Emily and shook it out. Soon the new grandma was lovingly dressing the child.
“Losing the babies caused me to turn to my parent’s faith for comfort and I began reading the Bible Mother had given me when we got married. I surrendered my life to Jesus and He’s been healing my broken heart, but Ben, -Dad- turned the other way. He became so bitter—”
“I—I guess I’d better go to bed, now,” Marita gasped.
“Oh, I’m so sorry! Did I say something wrong? You must be extremely tired!”
“Ya, I am,” Marita stated flatly to shaken to realize just how rude it sounded. “I just want to go to bed.”
“Oh, Marita,” Randall’s mother fussed,” I am so thoughtless! May I bring you something, an aspirin, perhaps? You’ll be way too tired for a bath, I suppose?”
“I’ll go to bed just like I am, tonight.”
Lily kept apologising for keeping her up so late, but Marita was not listening. Lily got a distinct feeling Marita wanted to push her out of the room but was too polite to, so with a breaking heart, walked to her own room.
Lily felt perplexed by the girl’s actions. I thought we were getting along so nicely.
What did I say that offended her? As she slid in quietly beside Ben, she prayed earnestly that God would help her to understand.
Remember the contest? Soon it will be December then you will have only 25 days to buy one of my books. Excerpt from one of the books offered. They are available in many countries.
www.marilynshistoricalnovel.com
