Ruth Axtell Morren - Wild Rose

Geneva set the dress aside. Below it was a thick roll of fabric, which her mother had purchased for a new dress. She remembered her excitement as a little girl that last spring before her mother had become bedridden, as her mother told her she’d bought enough fabric to make a dress for the two of them for summer. She’d told Geneva they’d be like twins instead of mother and daughter. The fabric had remained in one piece and would probably stay that way until it began to crumble at the folds with decay.

Geneva pushed aside the fabric and uncovered the object she’d come to get. A soft, brown, suede-bound volume with gilt letters. Geneva opened the book upon her crossed legs. Neatly printed letters in black upon white. She could recognize most of the letters, but could make nothing of the groupings. She’d tried and tried over the years.

What had made her think that this time it would be any different? What had possessed her to ask the captain to teach her to read? She could feel the heat suffusing her face as she thought once again of her request. The captain had acted so cordial. He’d seemed practically like his old self, the man she remembered on the wharf, so genuinely interested in doing something for her. But to spill out her most shameful secret? What had possessed her?

Having already spent the day agonizing over her behavior that morning, Geneva gave herself a shake and replaced everything in the chest, except the book. She stood and straightened her shoulders. She’d already washed her hands and face and combed her hair and changed her shirt. There was nothing left but to face the situation head-on. She gripped the book and marched to the door.

The afternoon sun was still high in the sky, causing the ocean at the end of the Point to shimmer in a thousand brilliant lights. Geneva could list a dozen things she should be doing instead of whiling away the afternoon poring over a book.

Jake started to follow her. “No, boy. You’d best stay home,” she told him, giving her yard a look of longing. How much she’d give to take her foolish words back and spend the afternoon on her soil, with the things she knew. “Your mistress has got to have all her wits about her this afternoon.”

Jake was no longer listening to her words. He turned his head away from her and began to bark. Geneva followed his gaze.

She stifled a sigh of annoyance at seeing her neighbor, Mrs. Stillman, bearing down her way, carrying a bundle wrapped in a dishcloth.

“Geneva!” Mrs. Stillman’s shrill voice reached her from the road.

Geneva sighed again and walked to meet the woman.

“Good afternoon.” Mrs. Stillman’s voice was breathless from her hike down the road.

“Afternoon.” Geneva remembered too late that she was still holding her mother’s book. She didn’t know whether to rest it on the stone wall in back of her, or just hang on to it, hoping it would go unnoticed. She decided the less movement she made with it, the better.

“You haven’t been by to collect any milk.” The farmer’s wife readjusted one of the pins in her abundant gray roll of hair. “I brought you some fresh butter. Sarah just churned it this morning.”

Sarah was Mrs. Stillman’s oldest daughter and Geneva’s age. Geneva had detested her since the two had walked to school together and Sarah had whispered things to her sisters, pointing and giggling at Geneva the whole way.

“Thank you,” Geneva mumbled, reaching out to take the proffered butter, laying the book on the stone wall in the process.

Mrs. Stillman smoothed her starched apron. “Is everything all right with you? You haven’t been by the farm.”

“Right as rain. Been busy with the garden is all.”

Mrs. Stillman nodded.

Geneva shifted the covered crock of butter from one hand to the other.

“Your new neighbor hasn’t been botherin’ you, has he?”

Geneva glanced at her. “Who?”

Mrs. Stillman’s glance strayed down the road to the Point. “The captain. I’ve seen you over there.”

Geneva started. “What’s wrong with giving him a hand?”

“Now, Geneva, I know you don’t like anyone interfering with what you do, and land sakes, you don’t live the kind of life I’d like to see any of my daughters live, but listen when I tell you, that man’s not someone you should get friendly with.”

Geneva straightened her shoulders. “There’s nothing wrong with Cap’n Caleb. He’s a decent, honorable gentleman.”

Mrs. Stillman’s lips tightened. “A woman’s got only one reputation and she’d better do her best to keep it spotless.”

“I ain’t doin’ nothin’ to be ashamed of. That’s more’n I can say for the rest of Haven’s End.”

“Don’t get your dander up. I’m not saying you are. But the less time you spend over there, the better.”

Geneva glared at her but decided she’d said enough.

When Mrs. Stillman saw that Geneva wasn’t going to say anything more, she sighed and smoothed down the front of her apron once more.

“Well, I’ve spoken my piece. I’ll leave the butter with you. You make sure you come by and get a pail of milk. Need to put some meat on your bones.” Her neighbor looked her critically up and down. She’d long ago stopped admonishing her to wear a dress, but never managed to hide her looks of disapproval.

“What’s that you got there?” Mrs. Stillman’s chin jutted toward the book perched on the flat stone.

“Just a book.”

She chuckled. “Where are you going with a book?” Her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You aren’t going…to lend it to a neighbor?” Her gaze traveled down the road toward the captain’s house.

Geneva looked down at the broken clamshells at her feet, noticing how green and damp the grass was along the edges of her path.

“A young woman oughtn’t be visitin’ a man alone. It’s not proper.”

Geneva wished she could just walk off and leave her nosy neighbor, but she didn’t want to do anything to cause harm to the captain. People were condemning him enough as it was. She thought of the way he’d told her that Miss Harding had broken the engagement and gone with another man. He had stated it so simply, but Geneva had sensed the pain behind the admission.

The captain didn’t need her adding to his woes. He needed her protection from the villagers’ gossip.

She cleared her throat, looking Mrs. Stillman in the eye. “Cap’n Caleb hasn’t done nothin’ that wasn’t proper and decent. I just offered some help to start his garden. There hasn’t been any more to it than that.”

“Well, you take care, my dear. I know you have no one in the world to speak for you. I feel it’s my bounden duty to look after you as if you was my daughter.”

“Yes’m.” Geneva looked at the butter. “Well, I’d best get this out of the sun.” She gave her neighbor a final nod. “I’ll be seein’ ya. Thank you kindly for the butter.” She turned back toward her door, hoping that by the time she came out, Mrs. Stillman would be gone.

She could feel her neighbor’s gaze on her until she closed the door behind her. She waited, peering through her curtain until the older woman climbed back up the hill, before venturing out again.

Captain Caleb was nowhere to be seen outside his yard, so Geneva headed toward the kitchen door, forgetting about Mrs. Stillman as her thoughts turned to her impending reading lesson. Her heart began pounding with each step she took closer to the house.

She heard the captain’s voice immediately after her knock, bidding her come in. She turned the doorknob and entered his kitchen. It was a large room, larger than her entire house including the lean-to. Not as large as the big hotel kitchen down at the harbor, but larger than any other kitchen she’d seen.