Lilac Spring

She brought a large crock of flour out of the pantry. “We’re making four loaves, so we’ll need a good bit of flour. That milk should be about ready. Test it on the inside of your arm. It should feel just warm enough to stand.”

“Yes, that’s what it feels like.”

“All right, bring it over and pour it over the yeast.” After she’d done so and let the yeast work a few minutes, her aunt dumped in some cupfuls of flour.

“Still, I hope you won’t be disappointed in Silas. I’ve known him since he was a lad. He’s grown to be such a nice young man, but sometimes I wonder what’s going on behind those gray eyes. He’s never given me any trouble, not like my Henry,” she added with a shake of her head. “He’s never gotten drunk to my knowledge, never uttered a profanity, nor gambled away his money. I admire those things about him—but as I said, I wonder sometimes…”

“Whatever do you mean?” Cherish asked, never having heard her aunt voice a concern about Silas.

She sighed. “Sometimes it seems as if something’s hurt him so deep, he’s buried all his natural feelings. I wouldn’t want you getting hurt by a want of feeling on his part. You’re a sensitive girl, a giving soul. I don’t know…some people can’t give what they don’t have.”

“I don’t believe that of Silas,” Cherish answered, emphasizing her remark with a decisive punch at the gooey dough, which succeeded only in stirring up the flour Aunt Phoebe had just emptied into the bowl. Cherish waved away the cloud of flour threatening to go up her nostrils. “I think Silas is a very sensitive person.”

“Well, you never can tell about people,” her aunt answered philosophically. “Sometimes no matter how long you live with someone, you still have no idea what lies beneath the surface, what—or who—it’ll take to awaken ’em.”

She poured in some more flour.

“How am I supposed to mix this? It’s so heavy and dry!”

“You just work it in good with your hands—you’ll see how smooth it gets. The more you knead it, the softer the bread’ll be.” Her aunt went to get the bread pans and began to grease them.

“I’ve always treated Silas like my own Henry. Your father didn’t hold with that, but I put my foot down, and I’m glad to say your mother, God rest her soul, did, too. We always sat him down with us at the table with the rest of the family. Your father wanted Silas to sit in here in the kitchen and take his meals with Celia and Jacob.

“‘Oh, no,’ I said, ‘Silas is going to sit at the table with us, where I can keep my eye on him and teach him his manners.’ His mother entrusted him to us. I was going to do right by him.”

“This dough feels good now. Like a big pillow, but my arms are aching.”

Her aunt prodded the dough. “It’s coming, but you’re not through. Sprinkle some flour on the table and turn the dough onto it and begin kneading it.” Her aunt stood beside her until satisfied she was doing it right. “Keep that up a good ten minutes and you’ll have the softest, lightest bread you’ve ever bit into.”

“Ten minutes!” This was worse than sanding a plank of wood.

“Just think how good those sandwiches are going to taste on that picnic,” her aunt said placidly as she began gathering up the used utensils.

Picturing Silas biting into a slice of her freshly baked bread, his eyes lighting up in pleasure, Cherish leaned into the dough with a new will.

“That’s my girl.”

Aunt Phoebe poured hot water from the stove into the dishpan. “I don’t know why your father has never given Silas the credit he deserves. According to what you’ve told me over the years, he has more talent in one little finger than Henry ever had—and that’s my son I’m talking about.”

“I’ve wondered that myself. I love Papa dearly, but sometimes I could just shake him the way he treats Silas. Take yesterday. Can you believe he didn’t take him along to have dinner with the Townsends? He left him to fend for himself on the docks as if he were just an ordinary deckhand.”

Aunt Phoebe stopped in her act of wiping off the table. “Is that the reason for the picnic today?” Her knowing blue eyes looked deep into Cherish’s.

Cherish could feel her cheeks warming. “Partially. It’s also a beautiful day for a picnic, and I haven’t had a chance to have a good chat with Silas since I’ve been back.”

Her aunt smiled in understanding, her face softening. “You go and have a good time. I’ll take care of your father.” She sighed. “Sometimes I’ve thought Tom resented Silas’s talent, resented the fact it’s in a stranger, come out of nowhere, and not in the son he wishes he’d had.”

Two dainty booted feet beneath a ruffled white gown sprigged with lavender flowers appeared at the edge of Silas’s vision.

He gave one last whack with the adze against the timber. Curls of wood chips went flying. Resting the metal head of the tool lightly against the plank he was forming out of a long piece of lumber, he straightened. Wiping the back of his arm against his forehead, he shoved aside the hair that kept falling forward. “Hello, there. What are you doing down here?”

“Come to fetch you.” Cherish was like a breath of cool sea breeze on the hot beach. She carried a picnic hamper in one hand and twirled a white parasol over her shoulder with the other.

“Where?” He laid down the adze on the pebbly beach and took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket to wipe his face.

“You and I are going on a picnic.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, so put away your things. I want to sail over to the meadow on Allison’s Bay.”

The idea was tempting. Then he looked at the pile of lumber still to be shaped into planks for the schooner standing over him like a giant elephant carcass, its ribs held together by scaffolding. “I don’t think I can leave right now.”

She followed his line of vision to the hull. “Nonsense. It’s almost dinnertime anyway. I’ve already told Aunt Phoebe not to expect us. Besides, you promised to spend the afternoons with me up in the workshop. We’re already a day behind.”

“I’d better tell your father,” he began, rolling down his shirtsleeves and buttoning the cuffs.

“Already taken care of.”

He eyed her, wondering what wiles she’d used on old man Winslow. The only one who could soften that man was his daughter. “Let me get cleaned up. I won’t be but a minute,” Silas told her, and headed toward the boat shop. Quickly he put on a clean shirt. Whistling, he came back down the stairs.

The day was indeed beautiful. Although spring didn’t come down east until May, once it came, it arrived in full force. Silas rowed them out to his own boat, a twenty-seven-foot yawl he’d built himself from stem post to stern. The name Sea Princess was painted along its bow.

He loved this boat, its sleek wooden lines, its full white sails, the way it handled under his guidance.

“We’ve got a strong northwest wind. We’ll be able to run her pretty clear,” he told her as he sheeted the mainsail close. It filled with the wind, making great clapping noises as he tugged on the sheets.

Once clear of the harbor, he worked the tiller and line, Cherish seated beside him.

She smiled. “May I?”

He gave a brief nod, relinquishing the tiller to her. She knew these waters as well as he.

“How do you like her?”

“She’s wonderful.”

Silas glanced at Cherish. The wind whipped at her ponytail. She brought a hand up to her forehead to keep the strands of hair out of her face. A smile played along her mouth. She looked as if she were enjoying herself to the full.

“I remember you were still working on her the last time I was here.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he answered.

“Why haven’t you named her after someone? Sea Princess, that could be anybody.”

He shrugged. “There’s no one to name her after.”

She gazed at him under her brows. “How unromantic of you.”