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  He held her for a long time, kissing her gently before he left. When she realized he was actually going, she felt suddenly bereft. Perhaps, in a part of her mind, she had thought how comforting it would be to be in his arms tonight—where he would kiss away the tears that all day had been near the surface.

  But he was already putting on his coat, slinging a knitted scarf around his neck, reaching for his hat. It was too late to ask him to stay.

  However, that evening her mother, accompanied by Cissy, retired earlier than usual, and Johanna found herself alone. Elly, worn out, had gone to bed before the company had all departed. In Elly’s borrowed bedroom, Johanna found she was restless, too upset to sleep. She wished she had not agreed to Ross’s leaving. She missed the feel of his arms enfolding her, comforting her.

  The events of the day, and her father’s letter, had been emotionally wrenching. Before long, Johanna began weeping uncontrollably, trying to smother the sound in her pillows.

  The squeaking of the bedroom door startled her. She sat up in time to see a small, white-gowned figure, like a little ghost, slip into the room and with a rush of bare feet run to the bedside and jump up.

  “Oh Johanna, I woke up and thought about Papa. I couldn’t go back to sleep. Can I come in with you?” Elly whispered urgently.

  “Of course!” Johanna said and threw back the covers. The two sisters clasped each other and, close in each other’s arms, wept together for all they had loved and lost.

  One day followed the next. Soon Johanna realized she had been at Holly Grove for over a week and had not sent word to Ross. The flow of visitors continued, because Tennant Shelby, a man of wide acquaintance, had been well liked, respected, held in affectionate regard by a number of people. Johanna took it upon herself to act as hostess in her mother’s place, greeting guests. This became sometimes tedious and stressful, given her own emotions, yet Johanna considered it a labor of love, deeply appreciating the esteem in which her father had been held. In spite of their shared grief, Cissy’s attitude toward her remained guarded. Employing newly gained sensitivity and tact, Johanna tried to ease the tension between them, to show her in small ways that her coming home did not threaten her sister’s place. Gradually Cissy softened. The two older daughters were able to divide the many varied tasks in the wake of Tennant Shelby’s death.

  There was much to be done. There were thank-you notes to write for all the gifts of flowers, food, and visits from neighbors, friends, and acquaintances. Their father’s office had to be closed with all the moving of books, papers, files. There were meetings with his law partners, arrangements to be made, and matters to be decided concerning disposition of property.

  With all this to deal with, two more weeks passed before Johanna realized that she had moved back into the rhythm of life at Holly Grove. Her life with Ross in the mountains seemed to have faded into the background.

  It wasn’t until she had been there four weeks that the full truth of this came to her. Dr. Murrison was called to the house because of Elly’s earache. Johanna had been taking care of her sister and was in the bedroom with her when Dr. Murrison arrived. He looked surprised to see her. “You still here, Johanna?”

  After he finished examining Elly, he left a small bottle of oil on the bedside table with instructions on how to administer it. “Heat it slightly and put two or three drops in each ear every few hours.” Then he turned to Johanna and gave her a sharp look. “So when will Ross be down to fetch you back home?”

  The blunt question and almost accusatory tone startled Johanna. Her cheeks got hot under his appraising glance. Busying herself smoothing Elly’s coverlet, she replied defensively, “Soon, I suppose. Right now I’m needed here.”

  “Oh? Is that right?” was the doctor’s only comment as he repacked his medical bag, patted Elly’s hand, saying, “You’ll soon be up and around, young lady. Won’t need any more of your sister’s fussin’ and coddlin’, I expect.” With another glance at Johanna, he departed, leaving her indignant and confused.

  Johanna spent another few minutes plumping Elly’s pillow, then went to refill her water jug. Why had she let Dr. Murrison’s remarks upset her? Wasn’t she doing what she should be doing? Didn’t her mother need her during this terrible time? After all, her mother had lost the husband on whom she had depended for over twenty years. Didn’t Dr. Murrison realize she needed support, comforting? Maybe he was just not sensitive to such things.

  Later, still bothered by what the crusty old physician had implied, Johanna knocked at her mother’s door. At her answering call, she went in.

  “Can I do anything for you, Mama?”

  Rebecca was seated at her escritoire, writing replies to the many condolence notes she had received. She looked up at her daughter’s entrance. For a moment, she studied the slim figure standing in the doorway. Johanna seemed fragile, vulnerable somehow—Rebecca had not missed her roughened hands. And she was thin, too thin. What had she been doing all these months to bring about these physical changes?

  Rebecca bit her lower lip. Was her new life as the wife of a hill doctor in that primitive backwoods community too hard for her? Johanna was still lovely looking, the prettiest of all her daughters. But youth and beauty were fleeting, and a life of deprivation and hard physical work could age a woman too soon. Rebecca curbed her inclination to say something—something she might regret, something that might bring pain or, worse, remorse. Besides, there were other things she had noticed, all to the good—a patience, a gentleness, a genuine sweetness in Johanna that had not been there before.

  Life teaches hard lessons. Evidently, Johanna was learning this. Rebecca sighed, then answered Johanna’s question. “Nothing, thank you, dear.” She went back to the note she was writing.

  Johanna remained standing there. “You’re sure?”

  Rebecca signed her name to one of the black-edged note cards she was writing. “Quite sure.”

  Johanna still hesitated.

  Rebecca looked up again. There was something in Johanna’s expression that Rebecca had never seen there before. An uncertainty—a pleading in her eyes. Ever since she had returned to Holly Grove, there had been something about Johanna that puzzled Rebecca. It was utterly unlike Johanna. She had been at Rebecca’s beck and call, interpreting a gesture, a glance, a word, anticipating her slightest wish, volunteering to fetch a shawl, a footstool, seeking to please, anxious to help.

  “Wouldn’t you like a cup of tea?”

  All at once Rebecca understood. Johanna was “doing penance” for what she perceived was her guilt. Somehow she blamed herself for her father’s death. As if her being here would have changed anything!

  Rebecca knew in her soul that she had often been jealous of Tennant’s closeness to Johanna. She had sometimes been stricter, perhaps, to counteract his indulgence.

  Things had always come so easily to Johanna—love, popularity, happiness. Rebecca had told herself she didn’t want her to be spoiled. But was it more than that? Had she wanted the intimacy Johanna shared with her father for herself?

  With sudden clarity, she saw that it was possible for her to have what she had always longed for from her oldest daughter—closeness, companionship, dependency even. In this moment, Rebecca knew it was in her power to bind Johanna to her more closely than she had ever been with her father. It would be easy, because Johanna wanted it, too. She could keep Johanna here, keep her from returning to where she had never wanted her to go in the first place. It would be so easy—too easy.

  Then came an image of the tall, young, awkward man who loved her daughter. In her mind, Rebecca saw his compassionate expression, his thoughtful eyes, the way he looked at Johanna with unselfish love.

  Pain slashed Rebecca’s heart. That kind of love was no longer hers, but it was Johanna’s. And she could not rob her of it. Johanna was a married woman, with duties that took precedence over any need her mother might have. Johanna must be made to see that. Johanna must go home to a husband who loved her, missed her, longed
for her, wanted her home. The home he had made for her, the home that was theirs to live in together! It would be dreadfully wrong of Rebecca to delay Johanna any longer here at Holly Grove.

  “Mama?” Johanna ventured hopefully. “Isn’t there anything I can do for you?”

  “No, dear, nothing,” Rebecca said firmly and turned away from the eagerness in Johanna’s eyes, back to her correspondence.

  “Don’t you need help with your notes?” Johanna persisted.

  “I’m almost finished.” Rebecca tapped the pile of black-rimmed envelopes with one finger. “Besides, Cissy can help me if there are any more.”

  Her mother’s tone was definite. Of course Cissy was here to help her with anything that might come up, Johanna thought. Why hadn’t she realized that? Johanna went out of the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

  At the click of the door being shut, Rebecca’s hand clenched compulsively and a blob of ink dropped from the point of her quill pen onto the neatly written note. With a stifled exclamation of annoyance, she crumpled it up and tossed it into the wastebasket by the desk.

  Rebecca knew she had hurt Johanna. However, she had deliberately sent her away. She also knew that when she was gone, she would miss her daughter dreadfully. Even with Cissy and Elly still at home, Rebecca knew she would be alone in a way she had never been before. Rebecca winced, placing her fists against her eyes.

  Johanna was the child of her heart, the way the others were not. However, she had done the right thing—she had “freed” Johanna. A mother’s sacrifices never end.

  Outside her mother’s closed door, Johanna stood for a few minutes. Slowly the myth of her mother’s need for her dissolved. The truth of her mother’s self-sufficiency was obvious. Rebecca Shelby had not been prostrated, become unable to function, or fallen into a melancholic depression with her husband’s death. She did not need Johanna here any longer. The household at Holly Grove hummed along as it always did, even without Tennant Shelby. Especially, it did not need Johanna to see that things ran properly.

  The truth was, she had stayed longer than necessary, deceiving herself into believing that she was needed. The truth was that she had been the needy one. She had welcomed sliding back into the ease and comfort of her old home. Meals appeared on the table without her lifting a finger, hot water was brought upstairs for her morning bath by Bessie, fresh sheets appeared on her bed, and clean towels were there like magic when she needed them.

  Why had she not seen what was happening? It had taken bluff old Dr. Murrison’s words to turn the key. He had unlocked this truth in her mind by asking her when Ross was coming to take her home.

  Hillsboro and Holly Grove were no longer her home. Home was with Ross, in the mountains, his beloved mountains—her beloved mountains. In her heart, understanding burst like a bud opening into a beautiful blossom.

  That very day she wrote a letter to be sent in the next day’s post. That night she packed her things.

  When at the end of the week Ross came, no word was spoken. None was needed. They rushed into each others arms as if it were the first or the last time they ever embraced.

  When Johanna caught sight of the cabin, her heart gave a lurch. It stood there as if waiting for her return. What an imaginative ninny I am, she said laughingly to herself. Then she turned to smile at Ross, who was looking at her as if anxious to see her reaction.

  “I’ll take the horses down to the barn, rub them down, and feed them, then I’ll be in directly,” Ross said as he helped her out of her saddle.

  When Johanna walked up the porch steps, she saw firewood neatly stacked at the far end. Often people paid Ross back with such things—suddenly there would be split logs piled beside the barn, with no clue as to who had left it there in payment. Or jugs of cider would be left outside the door. It was the mountain folks’ way. No money but too proud to accept charity. These evidences of how much Ross was appreciated touched Johanna. She wished her relatives in Hillsboro who still thought she’d married beneath her could know this.

  Opening the door, she walked inside the cabin. Immediately she breathed in mingled delicious smells—pumpkin pie, apple, cinnamon. Over the stove hung strings of red peppers, dried onions, pods of okra, striped gourds, rainbow-colored Indian corn.

  “Aunt Bertie’s doings, I expect,” she said to Ross when he came inside.

  “And Ma’s too,” Ross said quietly.

  Johanna felt stricken that she hadn’t thought of Eliza first. Ross’s mother had not been nearly as forthcoming and friendly to her as Aunt Bertie.

  “When she heard I was going down to bring you home,” Ross added, “she said she’d bring up supper so you wouldn’t have to cook when we got back. She knew you’d be tired. I think there’s beans and ham and bread. Probably other things as well.”

  “How kind,” Johanna murmured, making a mental resolution to make a real effort to get to know her mother-in-law better.

  Chapter Seventeen

  That winter seemed long and cold and lonely to Johanna. Although Ross had suggested she might want to spend Christmas with her family in Hillsboro, Johanna felt a strange reluctance. Without her father’s jovial presence, there would be a terrible void.

  As it turned out, there were heavy snows, and with the mountain trails impassable, traveling was out of the question. It was hard enough for Ross to trek to the isolated homes in Millscreek Gap to make necessary sick calls. There was a great deal of illness that year—children with whooping cough, the older people with severe rheumatism and colds. Ross came home late most evenings, exhausted, too tired and chilled to do more than eat and fall into bed.

  The snow kept away even her rare visits from Aunt Bertie and Uncle Tanner, as well as Sue and Katie, who had become frequent visitors since the rescue. Left much alone, Johanna experienced some melancholy about her father, thinking about what she might have said or done differently. She thought of the letter she had procrastinated about writing to him after her marriage, a letter expressing her love, her sorrow at having hurt him, her assurances that her choice had been the right one. She wished she had told her father that Ross was a good and loving husband. However, she had put it off time and again, not sure of exactly what to say. Now it was too late.

  Little by little, Johanna gained peace of mind. With her newfound faith, she believed her father did know.

  With the coming of spring, the mountains burst into glorious beauty. The air was filled with lovely smells—damp moss, sweet clover. There were warm, lovely days, longer afternoons, lavender evenings.

  It was in these first weeks of April 1841 that Johanna knew she was going to have a baby.

  After her first excitement at the prospect, Johanna had most of the same nagging little worries of any about-to-be mother. Tears came and went like April rain. I’m as bad as we used to tease Elly about, she admonished herself, crying at the drop of a hat! She knew it was the early stages of her condition. She had heard that expecting a baby sometimes made a woman fanciful and silly. After those first few weeks, a marvelous calm overcame Johanna, and with it a lovely glow.

  Ross was deeply happy and proud and couldn’t wait to tell everyone. Johanna wanted to wait to first share the news with his mother. Johanna felt somewhat shy about confiding some of her qualms about her approaching motherhood. Eliza was so strong and capable, she probably wouldn’t be very understanding. After all, she had birthed four of her own with no seeming problem. However, Johanna instinctively felt it was the right thing to do to tell her mother-in-law first, before Ross, in his own happy pride, blurted out the information to someone else.

  The path down to her mother-in-law’s house was steep, winding its way precariously between the dark woods on one side, the rocky cliff on the other, with a sheer drop down to the glistening river snaking through the cove below.

  Eliza’s thin, lined face broke into a wide smile at the news Johanna shyly confided.

  “I’m right pleased for you, Johanna. Havin’ a baby, becomin’ a mama—why
, I reckon it’s one of the happiest times in a woman’s life. I ‘spect Ross is beside hisself, ain’t he?” Eliza nodded. “He’ll make a fine daddy. He was always so good with the younger ones. Patient, kind to ‘em. Even Merriman, who could be ornery,” she chuckled. “He’s got all that from his pa, and that’s what makes him such a good doctor, I reckon.”

  In that afternoon she spent with Eliza was the first time Johanna began to feel close to her mother-in-law. Telling her about the coming baby seemed to have narrowed the gap between them.

  “Now, of course, you’re going to have to have quilts for the young’un. And it’ll pass your waitin’ time to be makin’ some.”

  “I’m ashamed that I don’t really know how to put one together,” Johanna confessed. “I guess I was too impatient, too restless, always wanting to be doing something else.”

  “Well, you’ll be sittin’ plenty in the next few months and the further along you git. It’s a nice, peaceful thing to do, sittin’, dreamin’ ‘bout the baby to come. It was fer me. I musta made a half dozen each time I was expectin’.”

  Eliza went over to the blanket box and opened the lid. The smell of cedar rose as she did so. Inside were neatly folded quilts. She brought one out, smoothed it with her gnarled, work-worn hands, then unfolded it to show it to Johanna. “This here is one like I’d made for Jenny’s last little ‘un. I had some pieces left over, and I dunno why, I jest made up another one. It was even ‘fore you and Ross got married. Mebbe even ‘fore I knew about you.”

  “Oh, it’s beautiful—Ma,” Johanna said softly, using the name for the first time, then reaching out a hand tentatively to touch the quilt.

  “You gotta be right careful about what pattern you use for a baby cradle,” Eliza went on, warming to her subject. “It’s just not the color or a pretty design you’re lookin’ for. There are some old tales about quilt patterns. Not to say I believe all of ‘em…” She shrugged. “I’ve always called this here one Turkey Tracks, that’s the way it was taught to me. But some of the old women say it used to be called Wandering Foot, and nobody would use it for a child’s bed.”