She hadn’t slept well. The longer she leaned over the front desk of the library, the more her back ached. Or perhaps it was her heart, she couldn’t be sure. The solace she’d always found in the safety of the library escaped her reach. Only misery, like the rain that clouded the windows and dripped against the windowpane, kept pace with her aching heart.
She was grateful for the few patrons and the silence that was only somewhat comforting. Another package had arrived from Mr. W. G. Hill that morning, and she’d slid it unopened into the drawer until after lunchtime. Miss Eloise had eyed her all through lunch as Maggie had picked at her food.
Finally, she took the package from the drawer and pulled out the contents of her next assignment. A pink tea rose was pressed and laid on top. Wesley’s handwritten note lacked all academic tone and she could hear his voice in her mind as she read.
Come with me, my dear Mag. There’s an afternoon tea on Friday. A reading on the lawn at 4:00 p.m.
Yours,
Wesley
“Oh …” Maggie held the flower and the note to her heart and drew in a breath, closing her eyes. “Oh Lord, tell me what to do,” she whispered, treasuring his invitation.
“Tell you what?”
Maggie opened her eyes wide. “Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Then what is that ‘nothing’ you are clutching to your chest, my dear?” A twinkle lit Miss Eloise’s eyes.
“It’s Wesley—Mr. Hill, I mean—he’s invited me for tea.” Maggie’s hands shook as she thrust the invitation onto the desk, pushed her chair back, and stood. “I can’t go, of course.” She began to pace and think out loud while Miss Eloise watched her. “How shall I tell him I can’t go?”
“Nonsense. You’ll go.”
“What? I’ll not go. I can’t go. You don’t understand.”
The front door sounded and Maggie looked at the clock and back to Miss Eloise, whose twinkling eyes now had a grin to match as Wesley marched toward them, staring at Maggie dead on with that confidence she loved, yet at the moment she loathed. Confidence, she had a sinking feeling, that could sway her to agree to things she knew better than to agree to. When had the clock struck five? She wasn’t ready to face him.
Maggie’s thoughts swirled as Wesley and Miss Eloise greeted one another with conspiratorial tones before they faced her.
“So you’ll be here to fetch her at three forty-five sharp on Friday. Yes, Mr. Hill, I can release her from her duties.”
Wait! What had she missed while lost in her befuddled thoughts?
“Miss Abbott.” Wesley reached across the desk between them. He took her hand and touched a soft kiss on the back of it before looking up. “I shall see you on Friday. Rain, or shine.”
Maggie’s mouth parted, but no words came forth. She swallowed dryly as he released her hand and turned, bidding Miss Eloise good day before slipping out as quickly as he’d appeared.
The front door shut, the click of the handle snapping her back to reality.
“Miss Eloise, what have you done? Why did you do that? You knew I didn’t want to go, yet there you stood, taking full advantage of my … my …”
“You most certainly did not say you didn’t want to go.” The woman’s stubborn hands went to her waist. Her stance said she wasn’t going to lose this argument. “You said you couldn’t go.”
“But you told him I could!” Serious dread filled her at the thought. She’d tried to tell him she wasn’t like him, give him some sort of hint that she wasn’t the girl he thought she was. “I don’t even have a tea dress to wear.” Tears stung her eyelids. She sat with a thump on her chair. “This is terrible.”
Miss Eloise came around the desk beside her. “Oh, don’t worry, I have something in mind. I’ll get a dress to your place in time for you to wear it Friday. Your father will swell with pride when he sees you in it, dear.”
Maggie shot up from the chair. “Oh no, you can’t.” Panic seized her.
A knowing look came over Miss Eloise’s face. “You haven’t told him about Wesley, child?”
Maggie’s tears spilled over as she shook her head. Overwhelmed by desire and confusion, a sob lurched from her chest as Miss Eloise swept her close the way she’d always done from the time she’d first skinned her knees as a girl. But the warm bosom of Miss Eloise couldn’t whisk away the feelings in her heart this time, and before she was ready the matron pushed her away to look her in the face.
“Oh, girl, tell me, why haven’t you told your father?”
Was it the desire of Wesley’s friendship she was most afraid of? Or… “I—I didn’t want to—shame him.” More sobs erupted from her chest as she threw herself in Miss Eloise’s embrace once more. “He’s given me everything I’ve ever needed. He always trusts that God gives us just enough. More is wasteful. To wish for more … I’m so afraid I’ll hurt Father’s pride—that he’ll think he couldn’t give me enough….” She swiped away tears with some relief at the admission of truth, the weight of holding it unspoken finally free from her soul.
“Are you quite certain that is the real reason for your tears, my girl?”
Maggie looked up to see Miss Eloise’s tender gaze that had a way of unveiling truth she hadn’t yet seen. “Yes.” But tears surged forth once more. “I think so….”
“Perhaps it’s less Mr. Hill’s social standing with your father and more your heart’s position with Mr. Hill’s that’s got you so upended? Do you care for Wesley, my dear?”
The admission of the truth bubbled up from Maggie’s heart. “Yes.” The simple word both relieved her and frightened her ridiculously.
“Your father loves you, dear girl. He wants the best for you. And if Wesley Graham Hill is the Heavenly Father’s best for you, then your earthly father won’t be looking at the man’s social standing, and you know it. He’ll be looking at the young man’s standing with the Lord our Father. I happen to approve, or I wouldn’t have allowed him to see you in the first place. You’ve never let the hard times that came to your family hold you back, and I certainly hope you won’t let those trials hold you back now.”
Maggie wiped the last of her tears away.
“Seems to me now that you’ve spoken the truth, you’ve got to find a way of telling it to the men in your life. Maggie-girl, you can’t live the rest of your life in the library like I have.”
Dinner was finished. The dishes were dried and put away. Maggie’s shoulders ached from the long day. She knew her father’s knees ached from the difficult gardening he’d done on all fours, up and down all day. When she knocked on the pine frame of his bedroom door, he looked up from the book that lay closed on his lap. Maggie always thought of the small space where his chair was placed beside his bed as a parlor where she stopped in to see him before she retired.
“You look tired, Father. Is the book not good? Shall I get you something more entertaining tomorrow?”
“Just a long day, my dear magpie.”
Maggie lingered, anxiety gripping her mind for how to broach what was on her heart.
“Sit down here.” He moved his stocking feet aside on the tattered ottoman.
Gathering her courage, she sat beside him. “Father, I’ve been asked to attend tea Friday.”
“That’s lovely. A tea with the academy girls? Miss Eloise says there are a lot of young girls who attend.”
She swallowed. “It’s Mr. Hill who’s asked.”
He stiffened. “Bernard Hill’s got a boy, does he?”
“Nephew.”
“I see.”
But Maggie couldn’t see what thoughts marched through her father’s mind, what judgments, what disappointment. Yet there was some hint in the way the lines of his forehead deepened.
“Just tea then?”
“Yes sir.” What did her father know of Bernard Hill? She wanted to explain that Wesley wasn’t like the old man. Instead, she waited his response.
“I suppose there’s no harm in having tea. I’ve let bygones be bygones.”
“What does that mean? You know his nephew?” She’d never known her father to hold a grudge, and the mere mention of bygones cast a foreboding over her.
“Mr. Hill the senior. Before your mother died I used to garden at the Perry where he served on the board. When the hotel burned down, there was a rumor that a lantern caught some grass cuttings on fire—in the gardener’s shed. The entire staff was let go, even though no one knew for certain. When he rebuilt the hotel, he started with a whole new staff.”
“But you weren’t to blame.”
“Of course not. But they had benefactors who needed to be appeased. It made hard times for us. That was the reason your mother had to find work. Work that eventually wore her down until she caught pneumonia the winter we lost her.”
Maggie held her breath as the memories that led up to her mother’s passing danced behind the look on her father’s face. So much sadness and heartache he’d faced. He looked up at her with a tender smile. “I forgave him and the board. Once the Father showed me it wasn’t his fault any more than that fire was mine.”
Though there might have been flaws in his reasoning, she could see by the light in his eyes that the peace he’d made long ago was more important. Perhaps that’s what he’d decided as well. Still, there was an old pain there she didn’t want to see reopened. “It’s just tea, Father.” She wanted to reassure him.
“Yes. It is.” But the flat way he said it made her think he knew better.
In time, he might come to hold Wesley in the esteem she’d always hoped he might for the man she would choose to share life with. For now though, it was only tea she was having, for heaven’s sake.