Dorothy Clark - Wooing the Schoolmarm

“I don’t care to be talking about David Dibble or any other man, Willa.”

She nodded, frowned at the bitterness in her mother’s voice. Not that she blamed her after the way her father had betrayed them by walking off to make a new life for himself. “I know how you feel, Mama. Every word Thomas spoke to me of love and marriage was a lie. But I will not let his deserting me three days before we were to be wed make me bitter.”

She leaned closer to the evening light coming in the window, wove the needle through the sock fabric and stretched the darning floss across the hole, then repeated the maneuver in the other direction. “I learned my lesson well, Mama. I will never trust another man. Thomas’s perfidy robbed me of any desire to fall in love or marry. But I refuse to let him rob me of anything more.” Her voice broke. She blinked away the tears welling into her eyes and glared down at the sock in her hand. “I shall have a good, useful life teaching children. And I will be happy.”

Silence followed her proclamation.

She glanced across the table from beneath her lowered lashes. Her mother was looking at her, a mixture of sadness and anger in her eyes, her hands idle in her lap. “You didn’t deserve that sort of treatment, Willa. Thomas Hunter is a selfish man, and you’re well rid of him.”

She raised her head. “Like you were well rid of Papa?”

“That was different. We were married and had a child.” Her mother cleared her throat, reached across the table and covered her hand. “I tried my best to make your father stay, Willa. I didn’t want you hurt.”

There was a mountain of love behind the quiet, strained words. She stared down at her mother’s dry, work-roughened hand. How many times had its touch comforted her, taken away her childish hurts? But Thomas’s treachery had pierced too deep. The wound he’d given her would remain. She took a breath and forced a smile. “Papa left thirteen years ago, Mama. The hurt is gone. All that’s left is an empty spot in my heart. But it’s only been three months since Thomas cast me aside. That part of my heart still hurts.” She drew another deep breath and made another turn with the darning floss. “You were right about Thomas not being trustworthy, Mama. I should have listened to you.”

“And I should have remembered ears do not hear when a heart is full.” There was a fierceness in her mother’s voice she’d never before heard. “Now, let’s put this behind us and not speak of Thomas again. Time will heal the wound.” Her mother drew her hand back, tied off her sewing thread, snipped it, set aside the finished shirt and picked up another off the mending pile. She laid it in her lap and looked off into the distance. “I’m so thankful you hadn’t married Thomas and aren’t doomed to spend your life alone, not knowing if you’re married or a widow. One day you will find a man who truly loves you and you will be free to love him.”

Willa jerked her head up and stared at her mother, stunned by her words, suddenly understanding her bitterness, her secluded lifestyle. She’d always thought of her father’s leaving as a single event, as the moment he had said goodbye and walked out the door, and her wound from his leaving had scarred over with the passing years. But her mother lived with the consequences of her father’s selfish act every day. Her father had stolen her mother’s life.

She caught her breath, looked down and wove the needle over and under the threads she’d stretched across the hole in the sock, thankfulness rising to weave through the hurt of Thomas’s desertion. At least her life was still her own. And it would remain so. She would let no man steal it from her. No man! Not ever.

* * *

Matthew gathered his courage and peeked in the bedroom door. If Sally spotted him, the crying and begging to sleep in Joshua’s room would start again. He considered himself as brave and stalwart as the next man, but Sally’s tears undid him.

Moonlight streamed in the windows, slanted across the bed. He huffed out a breath of relief. She was asleep, one small hand tucked beneath her chin, her long, blond curls splayed across her pillow. He stared at the spot of white fabric visible where the edge of the covers met her hand and a pang struck his heart. He didn’t have to go closer to see what it was. He knew. She was clutching her mother’s glove.

Lord, I don’t know what to do. Will allowing Sally to have Judith’s glove lessen her grief? Or does it prolong it? Should I take the glove away? I need wisdom, Lord. I need help!

He walked to the stairs and started down. He loved Joshua and Sally and willingly accepted their guardianship, but being thrust into the role of parent to two young, grieving children was daunting. He was faced with tasks and decisions he was ill-prepared to handle. That one child was a little girl made it even more difficult. And he had his own grief to contend with.

He shot a glance toward the ceiling of the small entrance hall. “I miss you, Robert. And I’m doing the best I can. But it would be a lot easier if you’d had two sons.” The thought of Sally’s little arms around his neck, of her small hand thrust so trustingly into his made his heart ache. “Not that I would want it different, big brother. I’ll figure it out. But it would certainly help with the girl things if I had a wife.”

He frowned and walked into his study to arrange his possessions that had come by freight wagon that afternoon. Why couldn’t he find a woman to love and marry? He was tired of this emptiness, this yearning for someone to share his life with that he’d been carrying around the last few years. He wanted a wife and children. Having Joshua and Sally these last few weeks had only increased that desire.

He lifted a box of books to his desk, pulled out his pocketknife and cut the cord that bound it. Robert had known Judith was the one for him as soon as he met her. But he’d never felt that immediate draw to a woman, the certainty that she was the one. He’d been making it a matter of prayer for the last year or so. But God hadn’t seen fit to answer those prayers. Unless…

He stared down at the book he’d pulled from the box, a vision of a lovely face with beautiful blue-green eyes framed by soft waves of chestnut-colored hair dancing against the leather cover. His pulse quickened. Was what had happened to him in the schoolhouse God’s answer to his prayers? There was no denying his immediate attraction to Miss Wright. An attraction so strong that he’d lost his normal good sense and eyed her like a besotted schoolboy. That had never happened to him before. But was it the beginning of love? Or only an aberration caused by his loneliness and grief?

He slid the book onto the top shelf of the bookcase behind his desk and reached into the box for another. It had been a humbling moment when the church council had asked him to leave the pulpit of his well-established church in Albany for two years to come and establish a foundation for the church here in Pinewood. But he’d been inclined to turn them down because of his loneliness. If he couldn’t find a woman to love and marry among his large congregation and abundant friends in the city, what chance had he to find one in a small, rural village nestled among the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains in western New York?

He scowled, put the book on the shelf and picked up another. Robert’s death had made up his mind. He had accepted the offer, hoping that a change of scene might help the children over their grief. Two years out of his life was a price he was willing to pay for the children’s healing. That was his plan.

He reached into the box for the last book, then paused. What if God had placed that yielding in his heart because He had a plan? One that helped the children, but also included the answer to his prayers? He blew out a breath, put the last book on the shelf and tossed the empty box to the floor. And what if he were simply letting his imagination run away with him? At least he knew the answer to that question. “Thy will be done, Lord. Thy will be done.”