Where Lilacs Still Bloom Page 3

  “But you look so … happy,” Delia said, she with the deep brown eyes.

  “Is something wrong with that?” Their caution brought my spirits down. “I thought you’d like having more pies.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Fritz said. “Let’s get them picked.”

  We returned to the work at hand. I heard geese chattering on the Lewis River. It made a wide loop not far from my father’s house, and the birds liked stopping there on their way south. I set the apples from that tree aside and marked the basket too. I’d cut a dozen branches from that tree this winter and graft them in the spring to extend the number that gave me my perfect fruit. I heard my family call to one another, make jokes, and gather at the baskets to drink water from the jugs. I felt separate from them and couldn’t name the feeling that settled over me. Frank caught my eye and sent an encouraging smile. Perhaps I should have shared my dream and effort along the way so that this moment of triumph wouldn’t seem like mine alone.

  It occurred to me that my father had been only half correct with his lessons in the orchard that day: it was important to dream, but sharing it with those you loved made achievement even better.

  FIVE

  SHELLY BERRINGER

  Baltimore, 1901

  Shelly Berringer would arrive any time now. It was her first trip to Bill’s home in Baltimore. She’d obsessed about what to wear, how much dust there’d be on the stage between Annapolis and Baltimore, whether she might change her clothes somewhere in between before seeing Bill. She carried an umbrella to ward against the June sun but wouldn’t really need it. June along the Chesapeake Bay was never really warm so much as balmy.

  Shelly wasn’t impressed with professors, yet W. A. “Bill” Snyder, in his forties, had caught her fancy. She was surrounded by instructors at the naval academy where her father taught. One had to see through the fog of their academic words to find their true hearts. Bill was shorter than her father but carried himself like a general, which he wasn’t. He was a man with a purpose, though, aware of his surroundings. Bill had brushed away the fog and shown that his true interest wasn’t for teaching so much as the subject he taught: botany. Shelly had never paid much attention to the science of plants. It was the comfort of gardens that offered happiness.

  The stage bumped along, and Shelly remembered Bill’s description of his mother’s garden and conservatory and how he’d planned an outdoor luncheon for them. She wondered what flowers he might choose for the centerpiece, hoping it wasn’t chrysanthemums, because those made her sneeze. Had she told him that? Mums were his mother’s favorite. She was glad now she’d chosen to wear what she had. She needed to be direct and let him know exactly who she was—his mother as well.

  He’d shared stories about his mother—whom he obviously adored—stories that caused a stream of perspiration to dribble down Shelly’s neck now, alighting at the collar of her dress. Bill loved his conservatory and the garden on the family estate where he said he “forgot about his loneliness in the company of stately roses, flashy peonies, and the ever-quiet sweet williams in season.” His mother seemed unaware of her son’s companionship with blooms, urging him to “let the gardeners do it; that’s why we pay them.”

  Shelly shifted on the seat, put her feet up across to reduce swelling. She was glad she was the only one on this stage so she could lift her legs. Bill would meet her at the stage stop. She’d stay with her aunt that evening. Even though Shelly was twenty-two and had lived around the world, traveling with her parents, her father insisted she have proper escorts. At least he’d let her make the trip alone. Bill had told her he admired independent women but “it makes sense to accommodate your father until such time as you marry and would then be accommodating your husband.” He used his professorial voice, and she’d bristled at that view of independence but kept silent. The relationship wasn’t far enough along yet.

  Shelly’s poor father worried she might never marry, since she’d found happiness tending him after her mother’s death five years previous and looking after the gardens she and her mother had both loved. “Putting down roots,” her mother called it when they arrived at a new army base and she nestled petunia seeds inside squash hulls for spring planting or laid tulip bulbs they’d brought from the last military station into new soil. It was the sign they were home when her mother found the place where “the lilacs would grow and the soap would foam up in the nearest creek.” She was from New England, and that was the story told about Vermonters staking their claims with soap and lilac starts.

  Bill had invited Shelly to come to his garden for tea six months into their travels. Traveling was how they’d met, Shelly visiting her aunt in Baltimore and Bill coming back from his week of teaching in St. John’s College in Annapolis.

  “Why I’d be pleased beyond words, Mr. Snyder,” she’d said when he invited her. “Beyond words.”

  “Excellent. Shall I send a cab for you?”

  “That would likely please my aunt.”

  “Oh, of course, your aunt.” He cleared his throat. “She must come too.”

  She heard the disappointment in his words and was grateful when he added, “She’ll be most welcome.”

  “I’ll do my best to convince her of the opportunity to see one of Baltimore’s finest gardens.”

  But her aunt had not found the “opportunity” because Shelly hadn’t given it to her. Shelly sent a note with just the tiniest of fibs expressing her aunt’s regret but giving her blessing that Shelly come alone by stage. Now here it was, the important day. She would meet his mother, and she would see where the garden path would take them.

  She felt the driver slow, and she pushed back the curtains when the stage stopped. Bill stood there in a white linen suit, straight as one of the four thousand cadets that surrounded her daily. He stopped to adjust the silver pin on his white tie, check for spots on the white linen suit. He took a deep breath and approached the cab. Why, he was as nervous as she was!

  The driver leaped down, opened the door.

  “Miss Berringer.” Bill leaned into the dark cab and offered his hand before the driver could.

  Shelly placed her fingers in his palm, and he closed his hands around the warm flesh. She hadn’t worn gloves. “Welcome.” His words didn’t quell the look of surprise when Shelly put her foot out on the step and he saw the tops of her black high-button shoes and a hemline barely reaching the top of them. She exposed a portion of striped-stocking-covered leg the width of a mum above her shoes.

  “Your … dress,” Bill gasped.

  “I hope you like it. It’s the rage for casual wear, like picnics. Which is what we’re having, isn’t it, Mr. Snyder?”

  “A picnic? Well …”

  “I mean, we are having brunch in your fabulous garden you said. I’m sure it will be fabulous.”

  “As are you. I … I didn’t expect—”

  “The reform dress?” Shelly finished for him. She’d chosen a black-and-white skirt whose hemline came a good foot above the ankle now that she stood. She wore no bustle, no corset but a wide belt and a loose white blouse with a scoop neckline trimmed in two black rows of ribbon. She carried a small straw hat. It was the latest in women’s fashion—suffrage fashion. Not at all the gossamer yellow he’d seen her in when they’d first met.

  “I’ve never actually seen the garb on a person, but I’ve read of it.”

  “And the consternation it can cause in certain social circles.” Shelly smiled at him. Would he meet her test?

  “Yes, circles visited by my mother and friends.”

  “You said you liked an independent woman, Mr. Snyder.”

  “I do.” He smiled then. “I’m glad to see you are one.”

  He put his elbow out for her to take, and they began walking toward the cab he’d hired for the drive from the stage stop to his estate.

  “What are we having for lunch?” Shelly wanted to sing with joy that he’d so graciously accepted her uniform of the day.

  “Watercress and
cucumber sandwiches, a fruit aspic, and perhaps a chocolate mousse. Do those appeal?”

  “They do, they do. Your mother will join us?”

  “Alas, just as your aunt had complications, so did my mother. She was called away suddenly, so I didn’t have time to let you know you’d be with me unchaperoned.”

  “My aunt didn’t really have other plans today … I never let her know.”

  Bill squeezed her arm as he helped her into the cab. “My mother, too, had planned to be gone. I never let—”

  “Ah, then another day they’ll be introduced to our reforming ways.”

  “They will indeed.” He patted her hand, skin to skin. “I hope you like chrysanthemums,” Bill said then. “I’ve a centerpiece of yellow ones.”

  “I’m partial to lilacs myself.” He had blue eyes that Shelly began to sink into.

  She sneezed as they stepped out of the cab and approached Bill’s garden. “Those mums just don’t like me. They just don’t like me, Mr. Snyder.”

  “Never mind about them. I like you.” He leaned close to her ear. “We’ll move them. Better yet, we’ll move the luncheon.”

  “But I want to see your garden.”

  “You will, you will,” Bill said, and Shelly noted he repeated words just as she did. “To the front lawn. We’ll have lemonade and sandwiches there and give the neighbors news to tell my mother when she returns.”

  “I like a man who can adapt,” Shelly said.

  “The strongest plants always do.”

  SIX

  SALACIOUS JOY

  Hulda, 1901

  Frank painted a sign that said Daffodil Farm and stuck it near the road that passed the house. People often stopped by on a Sunday afternoon in spring to look at the wash of yellow. I’d cut stems, and the children would put them in water, and we’d give bouquets away. In the fall, people returned, and I’d give them bulbs to plant. I took such pleasure in walking past a neighbor’s house to see yellow bobbing daffodils or tulips I recognized by hue as mine.

  Delia, my middle girl, cut lilac blooms too, in season, and we gave starts away. The lilacs begged me to turn my interests their way. I’d always had a dream, one I never told my father; but after our apple conversation, I told Frank.

  “I’ve always wanted to see a red lilac,” I said. “And a creamy white.”

  “I like them the way they are. But I know you see them different.” It was the height of the season where the colors were true and outshined the glassy leaves.

  “What I really want,” I said, “is to have a bloom with many petals instead of just four.”

  Frank pushed his hat toward the back of his forehead. “Now, that’s a challenge.”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “But I’ve had success with my apples and my daffodils. I think lilacs are next.”

  “So long as there’s bread on the table,” he cautioned. “And pies in the oven.”

  “I’ll make time for you, Frank.” I patted his hand. “And the children. You know I will. I just need to mark these bushes so I can pollinate next spring.” I pulled marked strips of cloth from my apron and took out one with two stitches made with white thread, to mark the pale purple bloom as the closest to white as I’d seen. At another bush I had ruby-red thread to suggest that purple bloom headed toward a reddish tint. I had made up dozens of markers while I sat in the evenings watching Frank write up the creamery board meeting minutes.

  “How would it be if I made metal tags for you?” Frank nodded toward my threads. “I could press in letters for codes.”

  “Why, that would be good. Wonderful. Thank you. Now I can spend my evenings looking at seed catalogs.” I grinned.

  “Would you ever consider selling some of your inventions to a seed company?” Frank asked.

  “What would be the fun in that? I like being able to give them away, to see who they go to. It’s just a little hobby, Frank. Nothing serious.”

  Frank nodded, but I felt a twinge of guilt again, that I devoted time and now Frank’s energy, too, for tasks that had no financial return and actually took money when I ordered new bulbs. At least I was pollinating from my own plants, so we saved that expense.

  “If you want, I can mark things in that book you keep too.”

  “Your penmanship is so much better than mine.”

  “You wouldn’t want to breed a pale purple to a deep purple without knowing it.”

  I couldn’t tell if he teased or not, but he was absolutely right.

  On a still morning when cranes called to one another on the Lewis, and dew marked the day, I made my way with a magnifying glass, a crochet hook, a turkey feather, and one of the children’s paintbrushes. I sought pollen on the palest purple bloom I’d marked the year before with Frank’s tag. Lilac pollen is as tiny as beach sand. The day was almost sultry with the fresh smell of turned earth from the vegetable garden Frank plowed up for us. As though I carried a hot cup of water across a room, I first used the paintbrush to lift pollen onto the turkey feather, and then with the crochet hook, I placed a grain at a time onto the stamen pushing up from the center of a promised bloom on the plant I wanted to change. Before moving on to the next one, I carefully wrapped a cloth bag around the fertilized plant so no bird or bee would come along and try to interfere with my plans. It seemed brassy to think that what a bee did by nature was somehow interfering, but I wanted to control what happened as best I could. I soon gave up on the paintbrush and just used the turkey feather to lift the pollen and carry it. I couldn’t get close enough to the plants with my Chinese hat on, so I took it off to bend closer to my work. With each transfer of pollen from one plant to the other, I held my breath. I did hundreds that first day.

  “Look at you, Mama,” Lizzie said, home for the summer. “Your face is burned to a crisp. The ladies at church will cluck their tongues when your cheeks turn brown as a bean.” I’d forgotten how long I’d been out in the sun without my hat. Lizzie left, then returned to rub lard on the worst parts, her fingers cool against my hot face. “There’s a recipe in my ladies’ magazine for a face cream. Let’s try it.”

  “They’ll know I’ve been out in my garden, is all. And lard is just fine for the burn.”

  “But what woman forgets her hat, Mama? For so long?”

  “Yes, yes, I know. I’ll remember tomorrow.”

  But I didn’t, and I caught the looks of my church friends at the Bible study on Wednesday evenings when Woodland’s faithful of many denominations gathered. With raised eyebrows, they’d ask what I was working on now.

  “Lilacs,” I said. And yes, I noticed a frown or two that I didn’t think was just about my tanned face. I was doing something simple housewives didn’t do and, even more salacious, taking pleasure in it.

  SEVEN

  LOST IN SEEKING

  Hulda, 1902

  My girls grew up, despite my wish to keep them at my side. So, when they were all three together, it was a festive time, even though we had work to do. I hated ironing and was glad when my girls reached an age where I could convince them that ironing shirts and sheets would develop their characters. At least that’s what my mother always told me while she heated the flatiron for me. On a spring afternoon, I heated the irons for Lizzie and Delia and Martha as they worked their way through the baskets, while I perused seed catalogs for ornamentals. I already had my kitchen garden planned. My girls had apparently been planning events as well.

  “We’d like to have a double wedding, the way you and Aunt Amelia did,” Delia said.

  “You would? Have you chosen your intended, or are you still piddling around with your travels?”

  “I’m not piddling.” Lizzie held the iron midair. “I climbed Mount St. Helens because I like the challenge.”

  “I can understand that. But challenging your brain is a better use of your time.”

  “She’s had college, Mama,” Martha said. “She needs a body challenge more than a mind one.” Martha was the only one of our children who didn’t have pearl-pale skin. Hers
had that wholesome look of warm sun, but of course that wasn’t the fashion then. I think it made her self-conscious, adding to her quiet ways.

  “I guess you’re right. Mountain climbing is a challenge that never appealed to me.”

  “It would build your character, Mama,” Delia said. She left her ironing board to pour kerosene into the one modern iron we had. She took her time.

  “I have other things to do,” I quipped. “Like surviving three chattering girls avoiding ironing.”

  “We’re doing it.” Lizzie’s clear voice rose above the groans of her sisters. “I’d rather entertain you on the piano.” Lizzie had a lot of interests, including music. I was proud that Frank and I could afford to send her off to Portland for schooling and music lessons and a piano. I’d graduated eighth grade at Lee Lewis School and wished I could have gone on further. But I met Frank, married him at sixteen, had Lizzie at seventeen, and that was that.

  “Ha,” Delia said, coming back to task. “I should be baking.”

  “Your father likes his collarless shirts pressed well. See how important you are.”

  “You’ve been waiting years to have us do this,” Lizzie said. She had the same oval face of her sisters and cocoa brown hair like them too.

  “If you’re going to have children, make them be girls. A mother can always use the help.”

  I thought back to when I had only daughters. With Martha’s arrival two years after Delia, I had three young girls underfoot. I set aside a plot where the two older ones could make their mud pies while Martha slept in her basket beneath the cedar tree. I kept the sun from her face, but she still looked suntanned even in winter. She took after Frank. They all had big brown eyes, though, taking after mine, I guess. Inside the house, the room heated up with the irons and the hot cotton. As much as I disliked housework, this afternoon of ironing and conversation was turning out to be a fine time. I was glad Fritz was with his dad somewhere with the cows.