Where Lilacs Still Bloom Read online

  FIFTEEN

  BOTH VEXING AND PRIVILEGE

  Hulda, 1904

  The future sons-in-law stepped forward to help put finishing touches on the yard where they’d be married. Fred Wilke, who would wed Lizzie, farmed for the Goerigs but he had a passion for travel, something Lizzie loved too. She took pleasure in visiting faraway places, and Fred promised he’d take care of that wish.

  Nell Irving Guild was Delia’s choice. A farmer like Frank, he had the kindest eyes, and he treated Delia as though she were fine china. She did at times look fragile with her tiny waist, which she didn’t get from me with my pickle shape.

  Both girls planned to wear white, another difference from Amelia and I at our weddings where black or lavender was the acceptable color. Neither girl would wear jewelry, and both dresses had sections of lace at the throat that let the skin show peekaboo through. They were going to be beautiful, and the men in their lives knew it.

  Then there was Martha. At eighteen, that girl had already decided to become a teacher. She’d leave soon after the weddings for school in Portland. I tried not to think of the emptiness all my girls moving on would leave behind. Instead, I thought of Martha’s dreams too and had no doubt she’d be a fine teacher if she could keep herself from “di-gress-ions” as she’s prone to stretch out that word.

  Ruth Reed helped us too, a young girl taking piano lessons from Lizzie at the Presbyterian church instead of here—some condition her father placed on her. I was just pleased she had time with Lizzie at the church and was allowed to help me out after school. She was so thankful her father allowed her to attend school in town, and so was I. She was a big-boned girl, the buckets were heavy, and my, we had so many plantings to tend.

  On a May morning, serenaded by goldfinches and robins, we pulled weeds and planted alyssum to line the wood-chipped paths where guests would wander with their punch and the men their ale (carried to the barn) following the Presbyterian service. Roses bloomed in June. I hoped for sweet-smelling daphnes bobbing their blue heads.

  “Let’s be sure we pull the weeds beside the barn,” I told Fritz.

  “Ah, Ma, no one’s going to even look at the barn.”

  “You don’t know these neighbors.” I shook my finger at him. “They have good eyes. And that’s where you men always end up with your brew.” It disgusted me the men drinking, but so long as they didn’t invade my house with liquor, I turned a blind eye to it. After all, my father had been a brewmaster, so I couldn’t very well join the teetotaler society. They smoked there too, but at least I collected the butts and used them for my nicotine tea to poison insects.

  “Let the daisies stand out against that brown barn as the backdrop instead of gangly thistle,” I told Fritz. “Ruthie will be here before long to help water. I’ll be glad when her parents decide to let her stay here. Poor child. It makes quite a trek for her to walk the distance.”

  “She’s a good kid,” Fritz said, and he sounded like an old man, which made me chuckle since Ruthie’s but four years younger than his fifteen years.

  Lizzie and Delia were busy on their knees, pulling weeds in the peonies’ plots. I hoped the blooms would hold from their usual May into later June for the wedding. Laughter rose as the girls chattered, and I was both delighted that they were such good friends and at the same time saddened knowing after next month they’d be gone from this place.

  “Don’t look so sad,” Martha said, coming up beside me.

  “I’m not. Just wistful watching all my charges grow.”

  “The ones with green stems, or the two with purple skirts and aprons?” she teased.

  “All. But this morning, the skirted kind.” With our hoes we walked the wood-chipped paths toward the apple orchard. I heard the distant whistle of the Mascot as it steamed down the Lewis. “It’ll be new and different for you with them gone, won’t it, Martha?”

  “Yes,” she said after a pause. “I’ll miss them. But in some ways, they’ve been gone for a long time already, their lives wrapped up in Nell Irving and Fred. All that courting, sitting in the lamplight in the evening on the porch, then telling each other what was said all over again afterward. Don’t say I said this, Mama, but sometimes I think they’re daft they get to giggling so.”

  “It’s love, honey. That’s what makes us laugh at the slightest hint of joy. They’ll settle down once they’re married and likely be more open to their younger sister’s and brother’s lives, not so taken with their own. Especially now, with the wedding. It’ll happen for you too, one day, Martha.”

  “I’m not so sure.” Her brown eyes looked deeply into my own earth-toned eyes. “You and Daddy aren’t much different now than I imagine you were when you first married. You laugh and tease each other, and he puts his arm around you for a squeeze, even when your hands are full of flour dough.”

  I laughed. “That’s when he’s most likely to give me squeezes.” I leaned into her as though to share a secret. “Your father is a joker, and it’s my surprised squeal he likes the most. Did I tell you about the time he exchanged one farmer’s entire herd of cows with another farmer’s? On Halloween? Can you imagine those two farmers’ surprise at their morning milking?”

  She laughed. “It’s what I’d want if I ever did find a man to love. I like a sense of humor, and I like surprises.”

  “I didn’t realize that. I’ll keep that in mind.” I thought then I should plan a surprise for her on the girls’ wedding day.

  I walked the orchard, checked on new grafts I’d made, then on to the lilac nursery. We had five acres here, and I imagined one day every inch might be covered but for the paths weaving through the ornamentals and trees. Crossbreeding was tedious. I might get only one plant out of four hundred that was reusable for breeding. The rest would be thrown out. Frank said he didn’t mind the work or the toss-outs so long as he had three meals a day and my hand in his for a time on the porch at dusk. “One day I’d like to get an automobile,” he told me, “but other than that, watching you work toward that cream lilac or the one with many petals is enough wealth for me.”

  “One day.” I felt a little guilty spending so much money on the Lemoine. An auto would have made his life easier.

  I looked over the petals on an amethyst-colored lilac to see if there might be even one bloom with more than four petals.

  “Mother!” It was Lizzie. “Can you please forget those lilacs? You haven’t heard a word Delia and I have said to you, have you?”

  I might have blushed. “No, now, well, I was tending my plants for a minute.”

  “It’s been two hours, Mama. There are other things that need tending.”

  “I know, I know. Come along, then, let’s see what might be ready for your bouquets and the table dressings too.”

  The girls led me back toward the tulips where Martha knelt, then stood, the three girls “filling me in” as they called it, the way I filled in an open garden space with new plants. “Just stay here now, Mama,” Lizzie said. “Don’t go off with your hoe. What about lavender for our bouquets?” I nodded. Whatever they wanted would be fine. I owed them that.

  I had humbling to do about being as attentive to my children as I was to my flowers. Mr. Burbank wrote a book professing that raising plants was like raising children. Both were vexing and a privilege. He didn’t have family as far as I could tell, besides a mother who he brought out west to visit now and then—but otherwise, he was alone with his workers and his plants. That was enough for him. I wondered if one day it would have to be enough for me if I outlived my Frank.

  SIXTEEN

  NIGHTMARES AND DAYDREAMS

  Hulda, 1904

  In early June, just two weeks before the wedding, I startled awake. “Frank. Your horse must be out.”

  “Huh?” He woke groggy from my elbow poke. I heard a horse whinny, and Frank said, “That’s ours, in the barn.”

  “Cows, then,” I said. “Can’t you hear them?”

  I rose and grabbed my robe, tossing my long brai
d outward, feeling the pressure of it along my back. “They’re running around the house,” I said. Bobby—we named all our dogs Bobby—our new dog, had started to bark from the potting shed, and I shushed him through the open window. No need to rile those bovines any more than they were.

  “Not our cows,” Frank said as he pulled on his pants and slipped the suspenders over his bare shoulders. “They’re on the Bottoms where they belong.” He peered into the dawn. “Not our horses either.”

  “Horses?” Our neighbors had horses. My brother, Emil, living next-door, he had horses. I headed down the stairs, grabbing a broom from the kitchen before scampering out the door. Frank followed with a lantern, and I guessed he had bare feet just as I did, the wet grass matting at my toes and swishing against my nightdress. I couldn’t see them but could hear the thundering hooves. Or it might have been my heart wondering when they’d come out of the darkness toward me, rush right over me. Horses could do that in their confusion.

  Where are they? The lilac nursery!

  “Frank, try to push them away from the lilacs!”

  “I don’t see them,” he shouted back.

  How many were there? Three? Five? A dozen? The earth shook.

  Where had they come from? “Hayah!” I shouted when Frank’s lantern cast a quick light across what looked to be a sorrel’s back. They headed to the nursery! “Push them out, Frank! They’ll destroy the Lemoine!”

  The sound and the smell of them swished by as they galloped toward my brother’s home, but the herd kept going, so I don’t think they were Emil’s. I hoped they weren’t, because I’d be giving him choice words if he’d failed to keep his barn door closed.

  “Maybe they bypassed it.” Frank’s breath came in short gasps. He held his lantern high as he approached. I knew what he was talking about.

  I hopped through the tall grass onto the path, tears already forming. All that work …

  “No. Look.”

  Frank set the lantern down beside the Lemoine where I knelt.

  “Look what they’ve done. Just look.”

  “What?” Frank said. “I can’t see well enough.”

  But I could. The horses had destroyed two more Lemoine lilacs, the roots ground into nothingness by their massive hooves. “They’re gone. Two more French lilacs dead, and dozens of starts trampled too.”

  “We’ll see if we can salvage them, Huldie. Don’t cry now. Don’t fret. Things will look better in the morning.”

  I held my head in my hands. “Frank. Three. That’s all that’s left.” I lifted the oblong metal labels that marked the survivors: Mme Casimir Périer (Lemoine, 1884), a beautiful double white; President Grévy (Lemoine, 1886), a double blue; and a splendid purple labeled Andenken an Ludwig Späth (Späth, 1883) made up the triumvirate. All that was left.

  “I’m not sure I can do anything with three.” I’d wondered if I could do anything with fifteen, let alone seven, then five. But three?

  “Now, now, I submit that these are three more than you had two years ago at this time,” Frank said. “All is not lost. You’ve already cross-pollinated a few from the others, the wrecked ones.”

  “Not enough to even notice.” I shook my head. “All I can introduce as new now are these three. I so wanted to see a creamy white with many blossoms in my lifetime, Frank. And now … seven years for a bloom after I’ve crossbred …”

  “You’ll keep busy.” Frank patted my shoulder. “Waiting isn’t done alone. There’ll be work to do. The time will fly, you’ll see. Right now, there’s the wedding. Think about that.” All I cared about was my lilacs and how I hadn’t saved them.

  Frank was right, of course. That Sunday I thanked the Lord for saving me three—Frank called them my Magical Three—and I asked for patience. It’s what I would need to produce the bloom I imagined in my heart. I could envision a sea of white each spring. I’d just have to be patient in my crossbreeding and learn better how to wait. And I’d fence in the nursery areas. I ought to have done that before.

  “Not sure asking for patience was a good idea,” Frank said after I told him what I’d prayed for. “Seems to me as soon as you ask for patience, you get something coming down the pike that requires an extra dose of it.”

  “I figured I was safe. After all, I’ve already had the misery that spurred the request.”

  “Maybe. But misery loves its company, and I don’t want it settling in with you. I want that special place next to you, not a plant or two.”

  The next morning we walked home from church with our children in front of us, the girls squired by their young men. Those children were my petals, every one of them. I wiped my eyes and took a deep breath, sliding my arm through Frank’s.

  “Let’s get a better look at how the rest of the yard fared,” Frank said when we arrived home. The girls rustled up dinner, and we could hear their chatter with their beaus through the open windows as Frank and Fritz and I walked the paths.

  Irises had been clipped by the shod hooves. They’d missed the peonies, though they were already beginning to splay out. A few daylilies looked as though a fat cat had squatted in their midst. Horses hadn’t had time to rip off an oriental poppy as they fled through the yard. Most of those blooms had already faded, but they still lent a color point for the eye. I spied the break in the neighbor’s fence on the other side where they’d trashed through. A flash of words spewed from my mouth, and Frank cautioned me. “Now, now,” he said.

  “I’d like to say those things to my neighbor.” But I wouldn’t. Not until I’d had time to think it through. Instead, I told Frank, “As soon as we can afford it, let’s think about one of those automobiles where the horsepower is contained inside metal. And offer the neighbor a ride now and then so he might be inspired to rid himself of those horses.”

  Frank grinned. “Who would have thought that horses trampling lilacs would lead to such a windfall for me!” Then he looked contrite and added, “Course it’s a terrible thing they did to your lemons, Huldie. But you’ll make lemonade of it, after all, I submit. Yes, indeed, that’s what I submit.”

  We could not have asked for a more glorious wedding day, even if the gardens could have been in a little better form. I’d tried to save seeds from the two equine-destroyed lilacs, but to no avail. I would have to focus on the three remaining. But that would be later, after the wedding, after things had settled down in my daughters’ lives, and I could concentrate on the lilacs.

  On my daughters’ wedding day, the sun shone bright and birds twittered in the magnolia and the holly trees. The flatiron garden plot was awash with blooms of many colors. Pansies and petunias bobbed their heads. Marigolds trotted around the perimeter of that iron-shaped planting. Lavender lent its sweet smell and promise of abundance to the occasion. I would carry a nosegay of lavender, and we handed out small bouquets to women as they arrived for the ceremony, at least those who didn’t have a flower already on their person.

  I looked out at the gardens the morning of the ceremony while ironing the girls’ dresses. Delia’s dress was satin, and it showed the wrinkles more than the linen that draped Lizzie’s slender frame. Both girls had cape bodices and ragamuffin sleeves, though Lizzie’s sleeves were lace and Delia’s all satin.

  I finished ironing and hung the girls’ dresses from the top railing of the stairwell, so their long gowns fell as though a waterfall. Martha and I worked in the sunroom with the lavender, and she reminded me as we created our bouquets that supposedly lavender represented a “woman in her prime, someone devoted.”

  “Really? I guess I knew that flowers had certain meanings, just not what they are.”

  “Violets are what Jupiter tossed into the fields for his beloved Io to graze upon after he turned her into a cow.”

  “A cow,” I said. “Not a horse?” I shook my head, remembering those lost lilacs. “What are they teaching you at the normal school?”

  “Greek and Roman mythology. Jupiter’s wife was jealous of Io, so Jupiter gave her up, but he wanted her to
have royal grazing. Thus the violets. The Greeks used to line their graves with violets, Mama.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind when some horses I know meet their Maker,” I said.

  Martha laughed. “Lavender is fitting for Lizzie and Delia, don’t you think? Modest yet mature; full of devotion. The Egyptians used lavender for both perfumes and embalming and the Romans for medicine.”

  “I like the perfume and medicine part.” I twisted a sprig of lavender. “And lilacs? What does your Greek mythology say they mean?”

  “A nymph named Syringa captivated Pan, the god of the forest and fields, and he chased her. To escape, Syringa turned herself into an aromatic bush.”

  “Inventive of her.”

  “But purple lilacs mean ‘first love,’ and white ones stand for ‘the innocence of youth.’ ”

  I rather liked Martha’s flower meanings. They were different from the old books I had in which the sentiments of flowers often contradicted each other.

  I wished lilacs had been in bloom for my daughters’ weddings; the sentiment was perfect. Instead, they carried mums mixed with baby’s-breath and lilies, and of course lavender. Martha and I would later mix an egg white and paint the bouquets with it, then dip them in sugar to preserve them. “The girls will love having the bouquets from their wedding day on their first anniversaries,” Martha said, and I agreed.

  Our neighbors came and all the uncles and aunts and cousins within the region. I loved having children rushing around, a fiddle player in the backyard, and glass lemonade pitchers holding down tablecloths lifted by the afternoon breezes. My brother, Emil, clapped the grooms on their backs and told them stories of Lizzie and Delia that I know the girls wished had been kept in the family.

  The wedding photographer set up his camera in the parlor for the official photographs once the girls were dressed. We didn’t hold with the opinion that the girls shouldn’t be seen by their future husbands until the ceremony. Instead, they saw each other as they stood before the camera lens and then would together head to the church for the ceremony.