Chapter 19 #2
When she finished, Cora let out a sigh. “I love how well Jewel and the Swensen girls played together. Torin must be blind not to see his daughter will only benefit from their company.”
“He’s deeply afraid,” Brian commented with a quelling glance at his betrothed. “Such emotion isn’t logical.”
Knowing more than Cora about Torin’s background, Ivy felt obligated to defend him. “His reasons aren’t mine to reveal. But the wound he suffered from his family was quite…painful.”
“Torin’s been comfortable with the life Hank and I made with him and Jewel. I know they’ve struggled with us not being around,” he glanced at Cora, “although he’d never say so.”
Rose picked up her cup and saucer. “Sounds like you’ve been wonderful for Jewel. I admire your creative efforts to help her learn. I’m sure the child is missing you very much.” She took a sip of her tea.
Ivy’s tears came again, rendering her too choked up to speak. She pulled out the damp handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.
Uncle Andre made a circling motion with his hand to indicate the house. “Let’s have you keep to the house for a few days while we ponder what else to do. Relax. Become acquainted with Cora’s family and friends. Hold the baby.”
“If she can wrest her away from the rest of us,” Cora said, sotto voce.
Ivy’s sense of independence stirred. She balled up the handkerchief again. “I don’t want to impose. I’ll stay at the boarding house.”
“You won’t go to the boarding house.” Cora gave a dramatic shudder. “Believe me, you don’t want to live under the gimlet eye of Mrs. Murphy.”
“You must reside here as our guest,” Aunt Rose chided.
“Not just our guest. Ivy, you’re a welcome addition to our family.
” Uncle Andre waved his teacup without spilling a drop.
“However, if you’d feel better contributing in some way and want to make yourself useful, Joshua said recently that he feels guilty because he’s been too busy to work with Micah on his Latin.
And my Latin is far too rusty to attempt any tutoring.
I’d probably lead the boy astray, and no one would be able to understand him. ”
“Except for a few quotes from Marcus Aurelius,” Rose said with gentle good humor.
“You notice, my dear—” his twinkling eyes belied his lofty tone “—I usually say them in English.” He turned to Ivy.
“As I was saying, Micah could definitely use tutoring. And if that’s not enough to keep you busy, you can help Rose, who’s so taken with our granddaughter—” he shot his wife a loving smirk “—that she’s fallen behind categorizing books for our library. ”
“The library won’t be ready for a year,” Rose said serenely. “More if you keep making additions. Andrea is here now.” She took another sip of tea before setting down her cup and saucer.
Ivy couldn’t help but think they were making work for her. Her pride reared up and wanted to refuse. Yanking down her reaction, she put on a grateful expression, accepting with as much graciousness as she could manage.
But from the sharp, knowing glance Uncle Andre gave her, Brian’s cocked eyebrow, and the looks of understanding from Rose and Cora, she wasn’t fooling anyone.
Torin stood outside on the porch, hands on the rail, looking out at the lake as if he stood on the newly fortified walls of his castle surveying his domain.
As beautiful a view as a man could want.
A year ago, he would have rejoiced in feeling surrounded by solitude and safety and nature.
A year ago, I had only two friends and my daughter.
Ever since Ivy had left, Torin moved in an icy fog. Once again he’d trusted the wrong woman. He was so hurt and blindly angry. Slowly, the anger drained away, leaving him feeling like a wraith drifting through his house, only becoming solid when he interacted with Jewel.
It had taken him longer to work through the betrayal and pain, to see that his feelings belonged to his past—a wound that had never completely healed. And Ivy had ripped it open, and then, like Mary Beth, abandoned him and Jewel.
Or had she?
Does it matter?
Only behind his walls did he feel Jewel was safe. He imagined Sweetwater Springs as he’d heard the town described and from the brief glimpse he’d gotten near the train station when he’d arrived. A town filled with potential enemies.
Ivy was out there among them, living in luxury. Cora had described the Bellaire-Norton house. Bathrooms, indoor plumbing, servants. Ivy is better off without me. But the truth was he and Jewel were not better off without her.
All he had to do was open the gates, let down the drawbridge over the moat, and ride over—well, walk because he didn’t have a horse.
But if he ventured to town and people were cruel to Jewel, he knew how rejection would harm his sunny girl. He could never take back the consequences of that decision.
But she’s not my sunny girl now. The upset she’d displayed after their friends left seemed multiplied. Before, at least, she could be distracted. But now she moved from peevish to tears to despondency and back.
He moved inside, closing the door behind him. Maybe, I’ll go work on Jewel’s dollhouse. If I can finish it soon, that should make a difference. He made a mental note to peruse the Montgomery Ward catalogue for some wallpaper with tiny flowers on it and some tiny dolls and furniture to fit inside.
Moving into the parlor, he went to the bookcase to look for the catalogue. He stood there, staring blankly at the books as if he’d forgotten his purpose.
A knock sounded at the front door, startling him. For a moment, his heart leaped. Ivy! But then he remembered her set expression, the pain in her eyes when she left, and knew it wasn’t her. Probably Hank or Brian come to check up on me.
He wasn’t sure if he wanted to talk to either one of them. They might not say so, but he knew they’d be on Ivy’s side. He opened the door.
A man stood there, who looked to be Torin’s age. “Hello, Torin.”
A stranger at the door? Only gentlemanly manners kept him from closing the door in the man’s face. But he didn’t widen it, either.
He blinked, vaguely recognizing the man.
But his scattered thoughts couldn’t seem to come together to figure out who he was.
He blinked again. The unusual crystal blue eyes and clerical cravat were the giveaway.
He was older now, with more lines around his eyes and across his forehead, and a close beard instead of clean-shaven. “Joshua? Joshua Norton?”
“I’d have come earlier if I’d known.”
The gentleness in Joshua’s tone and the remorse in his eyes melted enough of the ice that Torin could shuffle back and open the door wider.
As the man stepped in, looking far too elegantly clad for a minister despite the clerical cravat, Torin became aware that he’d hadn’t bathed or shaved or combed his hair since Ivy left.
Joshua stepped in and glanced around. “Your daughter?”
“She’s sleeping.”
“Ah. Perhaps, I’ll meet her later if you’ll allow.”
Torin didn’t at all want to allow. But the gentle wave of ministerial-ness radiating from the man was almost enough to, if not coax him into a yes, at least keep him from an immediate refusal.
Holding in a grumpy grunt, he led the way into the parlor and gestured to the couch.
He hadn’t baked lately so had nothing sweet to offer. “Coffee? Tea?”
Reverend Joshua waved off the offer of something to drink.
As he sat down, he let out a long sigh, removed his hat, and placed it on the sofa next to him.
“When Cora told us of your presence and that of your daughter here in Sweetwater Springs, I must admit that at first I was…shocked and disturbed that you wouldn’t reach out to me.
” He paused, evidently searching for what to say.
He’s hurt, Torin surmised, surprised to feel some shame. If he thought of Joshua Norton at all, it was to dismiss him as being judgmental. It never occurred to him that he could cause the man pain. The very idea was so foreign, he almost couldn’t take in the information.
“But upon further reflection,” Joshua rubbed his chin, “I realized you quite possibly had put me in the same rigid category as Esther’s family.”
“My condolences on the death of your wife,” Torin said stiffly.
He stopped there, not having anything else to add.
He’d never liked Esther Maynard. She’d struck him as one of those holier-than-thou people, more inclined to judge and preach, rather then converse.
Even though their families socialized regularly, he avoided her presence as much as he could politely do.
Joshua accepted the condolences with a nod. “Your family are neighbors of the Maynards. I didn’t see them when Micah and I first returned from Africa and stayed in Cambridge for a week. We were in mourning for my wife, so the family didn’t entertain.”
If Joshua had seen my parents, I wonder what they would have said if he asked about me.
The man shifted in his seat. “I was in Africa, so I didn’t know about the birth of your daughter and your family’s repudiation.
” His jaw tightened. “But you can be assured that I would not have agreed with their choice, and so I would have rebuked them,” he said, with a small, self-deprecating lift of his hand and a wry turn up of his mouth.
“Neither of us—my father and I—are prone to rebuking. We have to be sorely moved. And back then, dazed as I was by Abner Maynard singling me out for his attentions, mightily moved.”
“I doubt your rebuking, no matter how mightily, would have made a difference,” Torin said wryly.
“Perhaps not to your family’s decision to shun you and your daughter. But at least you would have known someone was on your side, who greatly admired the stance you took.”