Chapter Four

A few weeks after the move, Mama began thinking about the lace veil she had worn on her wedding day. Although it was only a piece of cloth, to her it had always symbolized hope for the future. She had left so many pretty things behind in Brazil, and with her husband ill and unable to work, she didn’t know if the family would ever to able to replace all they had lost. At least there was the veil.

“Elisa! Didn’t you pack my lace wedding veil in Pernambuco? I haven’t seen it since we moved. Please go into the attic and find it for me,” she called upstairs.

“Sure, Mama,” Elisa answered, not knowing how difficult it would be to fulfill her mother’s request.

Elisa pulled on the rope that brought the ladder to the attic down and climbed up through the opening. She quickly located the trunk full of linens she and Cecile had packed that sunny day in Pernambuco.

Elisa carefully lifted each piece of linen out and placed it on the floor next to her. A long lace table runner, a set of doilies—all lovely, but not what she was hoping to find. She could feel her heart beating faster the longer she searched. After all, it wasn’t just any piece of lace that she hoped to see. It was her mother’s wedding veil.

“Did you find it yet?” Cecile asked as she climbed up through the opening to the attic to join Elisa in the search.

“No, Cile. Don’t you think I would have come back downstairs if I had?”

“Well, I hope it’s not lost. Papa gave that veil to Mama as a wedding gift. We’re supposed to wear it at our weddings.”

“I know.” Elisa sighed, “and it’s not like we could have another made. I don’t think you and I can go to Paris.”

Elisa and Cecile thought back to the day in Pernambuco when they had last seen the veil. They had dreamed of their own wedding days to come.

“I remember your wanting to try it on,” Cecile said. “You took it into the bedroom. Then what did you do with it?”

“That’s what I can’t remember, Cile. Mama said to pack it somewhere safe, and I thought I did, but I don’t remember where.”

The two girls went through all the linens again. Then they sat on the attic floor and looked at each other somberly.

“Why can’t I remember where I packed the veil, Cile?” Elisa said. She felt the tears brimming up in her eyes. “Was I just too excited about my birthday and our move to be thinking clearly? If only I could remember.”

Just then Albertine and Adele called up from the bottom of the ladder.

“Lizzie! Cile! We want to play in the attic too,” Albertine called out.

“Come help us climb the ladder!” Adele added.

“No, girls,” Cecile replied. “We’re not playing; we’re looking for something. We’ll be down in a few minutes. Quiet now. Papa is resting.”

“The veil isn’t in this trunk, Lizzie,” Cecile said, turning back to her sister. “We might as well go back downstairs.”

Elisa let the tears spill down her face and didn’t even bother to wipe them away.

“I know, Lizzie. We’ll pray about it,” Cecile said at last. “We don’t know where the veil is, but the Lord does. Papa said that the Lord brought us to this place. He brought all our trunks and belongings, too. He’ll help us find the veil. Here, use this handkerchief from the trunk. Let’s pray.”

“All right, Cile. I’ll start,” Elisa said. She wiped her eyes and bowed her head. “O gracious Lord, You protected us as we sailed across the ocean. You have kept our father alive even though he is so sick. You helped us find a place to live in our new country. Help us now, Lord.”

“If it be Your will,” Cecile added, “let us find the veil. It would make Mama so happy, Lord, and You know how tired she is now. You know where the veil is. Please help us find it.”

Cecile put her arm around Elisa and added, “In Jesus’s precious name we pray. Amen.” She gave her younger sister a hug. “I feel better, Lizzie, don’t you?”

“I guess so, Cile,” Elisa said as she wiped a few more tears from her cheeks. “Will you go with me to tell Mama I couldn’t find the veil?”

“Sure. She’s in the kitchen making soup for Papa. Come on. No more tears. Remember, we prayed.”

The kitchen was on the bottom floor of the two-story frame house. Since it was in the back of the house, the kitchen window looked out across the rolling Tennessee fields. When the girls arrived at the door of the kitchen, they saw their mother gazing out the window at the huge old maple and walnut trees that dappled the backyard.

Mama stood peeling potatoes and carrots to cream into a soft but nourishing soup for her ailing husband. The girls knew there would be plenty for them too. With five children to feed in addition to Papa, Mama would make at least two kettles full.

Elisa grabbed Cecile by the skirt just before the girls got to the kitchen door and pulled her back out into the hall.

“Are you sure we have to tell her, Cile?” Elisa asked. “Mama’s been working so hard, and I think she’s really worrying about Papa. Did you see how she was just staring out into the backyard?”

Both of the older girls were sensitive to their mother’s feelings. Although she never complained, Mama sometimes talked about the days in Brazil when they had all their furniture and pretty things.

“It was wonderful having the servants to help with all the cooking and cleaning,” Mama said one day. “But you know what I miss most about Brazil? Sending your father off to his day’s work and watching him walk through the front garden in his handsome white suit and Panama hat—then welcoming him home at the end of the day.”

Of course, that was before Papa’s heart started growing weaker day by day.

The children never heard their mother criticize her husband’s decision to bring the family to Tennessee, and they knew she had been very happy to see her sister and cousins. But when they saw her staring out the kitchen window like she was doing, it was almost as if she were trying to see all the way back to Pernambuco—to see the life they had lived in sunbaked days there.

“Don’t you think she’s going to ask if you found the veil?” Cecile said. “Come on, I’ll help you tell her.”

The girls came into the kitchen and sat down at the big wooden table. Mama put down the paring knife she was using and turned to face them. “What is it?” she asked. “You girls look like you’ve seen a ghost in the attic.”

“It isn’t what we saw that has upset us, Mama,” Elisa began. “It’s what we didn’t see.” Elisa kicked her sister gently under the table.

“We didn’t find the veil, Mama,” Cecile said. “Lizzie looked through the trunk of linens twice, but it’s just not there.”

Their mother turned her face toward the kitchen window again.

“She isn’t saying anything at all,” Elisa whispered to Cecile. “Why doesn’t she say something?”

“Shhh … maybe she’s trying to decide what to say,” Cecile said. “Just wait.”

“Well, we’ll have more time to look another day,” Mama turned to say at last. “Maybe it’s in another trunk. You know girls, it’s only a veil … but the memories it brings back of the July morning in 1836 when I married your father.”

“Tell us about the wedding again, Mama!” Elisa exclaimed. The girls never tired of hearing about the romance between their mother and father, and the story of the wedding day was their favorite part.

Mama wiped her hands and joined the girls at the kitchen table.

“All the family in Lausanne, including many of the aunts and uncles now here with us in Tennessee, had gathered to wish us well,” she began. “I remember walking across the stones of the courtyard outside the Cathedral of Lausanne in my white lace dress with the veil Papa brought from Paris billowing all around me.”

“Remember to tell us what Papa was wearing,” Elisa said.

“Oh, yes. He was very handsome in a dark gray suit with a starched white shirt. The suit coat had tails, and he wore a black-striped silk cravat from Paris,” Mama said. “My bouquet was made of edelweiss, roses, and daisies, and Papa had a sprig of edelweiss in his lapel as a boutonniere.”

“And you were nervous to be marrying Papa, right, Mama?” Cecile asked.

“Yes, a bit,” Mama said, “because I didn’t really know him very well yet. If you remember, I met Papa through Theodore Chavannes. After he married my sister, Cecile, the two of them decided Papa and I should meet.”

“And when you met Papa, did you fall very much in love, Mama?” Elisa asked, knowing full well the answer her mother would give.

“From my head to my toes. I knew I loved him and that he loved me. I just didn’t know what the future would hold for us. But because I knew Papa had given his life to Jesus Christ just as I had, I was able to put it all in the Lord’s hands.”

“I like that part, Mama,” Cecile said.

Just then Emmanuel came through the back door into the kitchen with Albertine and Adele close behind him. With Papa sick in bed, most of the chores of running the farm were falling to Emmanuel. Fortunately, all the uncles and cousins were willing to help. They taught Emmanuel how to harvest the vegetables the previous owners had planted and tend to the chickens.

“Uncle Theodore’s dog had a litter of eight puppies,” Emmanuel said as he drew water from the kitchen pump to wash his hands.

“We want a puppy, Mama!” Albertine squealed.

“May we have one, Mama? Please?” Adele chirped in.

“A puppy? I don’t know about that,” Mama replied.

“Adele and I will take care of it ourselves,” Albertine said. “We help Emmanuel with all his chores now. I know we can take care of a puppy. May we have one, Mama?”

Emmanuel laughed at Albertine’s report that the younger girls were a help with the chores. He knew they liked spending time with him so he took them along. But a help? Not really.

“You have to ask Papa. If he says yes, we’ll have a look at them on Sunday when we go to the Chavannes farm for services,” Mama said. “But we would have to wait several weeks before bringing one home.”

“We know, Mama,” Albertine said. “Come on, Adele, let’s go talk to Papa about the puppy.”

“If he’s sleeping, don’t wake him!” Mama called out as the girls ran from the kitchen.

“What were you three discussing so intently when we came in?” Emmanuel asked.

“I was telling the girls about the day Papa and I were married,” Mama said.

“That again? Don’t you girls ever get tired of hearing that story?” he teased.

“If you would let us be, we could hear the end of it, Em,” Elisa said.

“I think I’ll go talk to Papa too,” he laughed as he followed the little girls in the direction of his parents’ bedroom.

“Now, Mama, tell us. Was it hard to say good-bye to your family?” Cecile asked.

“Yes, it was. I could only imagine what it would be like to leave Switzerland for Brazil. And I certainly didn’t know what would be expected of me as the wife of the Swiss Consul,” Mama said. “As for America, well, I never dreamed my French groom would one day bring me here to live as well. But here we are, aren’t we?”

“Oh, Mama, I know you said one glance at the veil makes you feel like a bride again. I’m so sorry I can’t remember where I packed it.”

“Elisa, don’t go on so,” Mama said as she went back to the hearth to stir the kettles of soup.

“I was hoping to see it again, because doing so seems to restore the hope in my heart. Yet I know my only real hope comes from the Lord.

“It’s just a piece of cloth, isn’t it?” Mama said as she rejoined the girls at the table. “It may turn up yet. If not, I’ll just have to make a new veil to be our family heirloom. After all, we’re in a new country, so we need new heirlooms! And I do believe I have time. You don’t have a suitor to tell me about, do you, Cile?”

At her question, the girls laughed. Then they hopped up to give their mother a hug.

“No, Mama, there’s no suitor yet,” Cecile said between giggles. “And Lizzie doesn’t have one either.”

“Well, then, we won’t worry until we know there’s a wedding on the way, will we?”

“Oh, Mama! I almost forgot,” Elisa added. “We prayed about the veil. We asked the Lord to help us find it.”

“Then it’s out of our hands, isn’t it? I have a wonderful idea to get our minds off the veil for now. Why don’t you girls go in and sing to your father while I finish up supper? I know it won’t be the same without the piano, but you still have your accordion, Lizzie. I put it in the bedroom. Go on now. Include Albertine and Adele. Nothing cheers Papa like his girls.”

Elisa and Cecile hurried to do as their mother asked. For now, the veil was forgotten as they began planning their performance for Papa.