Gift from the Sea (9 page)

Maggie checked the small watch she wore on a thin gold chain around her neck. “It is past time for your medication—I apologize.” She turned to the dresser where she had set up his medications.

“Do you believe what I have told you?” he asked as she held out the pills and a glass half-filled with water.

“I haven’t heard the entire story,” she hedged. “What happened once you reached Belgium? And you said there were two events that changed your mind, your loyalty.”

“Never my loyalty,” he announced, nearly choking on the pills. “I love my country.”

“Yes, as do I love mine,” she said firmly. He saw that the interruption had given her the moment she needed to remind herself who he was.

“Let me tell you the rest,” he pleaded, sensing that he was losing her. “Then perhaps you will understand.”

“Later. For now please swallow those pills and rest.” He took the pills in his mouth and held out his hand for the water glass. To his surprise Maggie pressed two fingers gently to his throat. “Swallow,” she said as she watched his throat convulse with the action. “Now open.” Using her fingers she stretched his lips apart and checked the inside of his mouth. “Good,” she said. “If you want me to consider believing you, a good first step is to stop hiding your pills and discarding them once I leave the room.”

She offered him one more drink of the water, which he refused. “It occurs to me that under different circumstances you and I would have shared much in common. We could have become friends, Maggie,” he said, watching her as she refilled the water glass.

“Do not think anything has changed between us,” she replied evenly, but he did not miss the way her hand trembled as she set the glass on the bedside table within his reach.

In the hallway Maggie rested her head back against the closed door and drew in several deep breaths. The truth was
she had gotten completely caught up in his story. His lightly accented but nearly perfect English had made her forget for a time that he was German. The story of his sister had been mesmerizing and never more so than the moment when he related that she had been working against her own government.

Of course, she reminded herself, gaining her sympathy had been his intent. And how better to do that than to use the photograph of the laughing young mother—a woman about Maggie’s age—holding her cherubic child on her knee, their heads bent close? She’d gotten so caught up in the image of Uma and Klaus slowly wasting away that she’d failed to notice that none of this had in any way answered the question of tricking her father into sending her off on that wild-goose chase at the docks. She would not be so easily taken in again, she vowed as she set about dusting and sweeping the parlor and dining room and washing the breakfast dishes.

On the other hand, there was something about Stefan Witte. Something familiar about his eyes and their depths of sadness and bewilderment at what his world had become that she recognized. Clearly she had never met the man before he showed up half-frozen at her family’s inn. And yet she felt as if they understood each other on a level beyond the understanding she received from her parents or friends. What if her mother and Sarah were right? What if God had sent this man to them?

You no longer believe in God, Maggie reminded herself.

“Enough,” she whispered aloud. “Think on something else,” she ordered herself and forced her thoughts to the inn. She wondered what Jeanne was doing. She had mentioned something about going into town again. Then Frederick had
reminded her of the need to attend to some correspondence that was long overdue and Jeanne had made a face. Frederick had promised that if she worked on that project with him, he would entertain the family that evening by playing piano for a sing-along.

“Lovely,” Jeanne had exclaimed. “Frederick is a gifted pianist,” she had assured everyone at the breakfast table. “And Gabe, I seem to recall that you have a passable baritone?”

“Gabriel sings in the church choir,” Lucie said before Gabe could reply. “Last Christmas, he had a solo,” she added with obvious pride.

“Perhaps Frederick might perform a concerto for the church one Sunday while we’re here,” Jeanne had suggested. “Wouldn’t you love hearing a Bach on that fine old organ, Maggie?”

“Or perhaps we might invite neighbors and friends here while the inn is quiet to enjoy a musical evening and one of Mother’s wonderful buffets,” she suggested instead.

It was obvious that her mother had confided in Jeanne that Maggie had abandoned the church after Michael’s death. It was the one thing that had caused Mama the greatest worry. Now Jeanne had evidently decided to find some way to draw Maggie back into the fold. On the one hand, Maggie saw this as yet another sign of the deep friendship that her mother and Jeanne shared. On the other, Maggie was no hypocrite; her ties with God and all matters religious had been irrevocably broken the day she’d gotten the news of Michael’s death.

Now, as she had from the day she’d gotten the news of Michael’s death, she waited for the tears, but she felt only the now-familiar emptiness. And marching alongside that emptiness were the loss and feelings of abandonment she fought
against every day. Mama promised that life would go on, that she would find new meaning, new purpose, but when?

Catching sight of her reflection in the glass of the kitchen window, she drew in her breath and leaned closer until only her eyes stared back at her. There was the same heartache and sorrow she had found so hauntingly familiar in the eyes of her patient. Stefan Witte had suffered and not just physically. He was emotionally ravaged, and in that she could not deny that they shared a common ground, a kind of temporary truce.

A movement outside brought her attention back to the present. Her mother was coming down the path, wending her way carefully over the rutted snow and ice, a basket over one arm. At the same time the pot with the onions and potatoes she had set on the stove for her patient’s lunch began to boil over. Maggie whirled round to the stove and wrapped the hem of her apron around the heavy iron pot handle as she dragged it off the hot surface.

“Hello?” her mother called, letting herself in and stamping the snow from her feet in the hall. “Maggie?”

“In here,” Maggie called, adding as soon as Lucie came round the doorway, “You shouldn’t be out in this weather, Mama.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” her mother protested, setting the basket on the table and unwrapping the tea towels that covered its contents. “Sarah baked bread.”

Maggie slowed her stirring. “Yes. She left two loaves here. There was no need…”

“How is our patient?” Mama whispered.

“Somewhat improved.” Maggie knew full well that Dr. Williams and her father discussed the German’s progress daily as they debated their next step. “Mama, has something happened?”

Mama touched Maggie’s cheek. “I just wanted to see how you were doing.”

“But Aunt Jeanne…”

“Has gone into town with Frederick. She was quite at loose ends all morning. In fact, ever since the three of you returned from your shopping excursion she’s not been herself. Perhaps I should be asking you if something happened there?”

Maggie well knew that her father had not told her mother about Maggie’s assignment in town. “Let’s not worry your mother with this” had been his parting words as she left his study after returning the undelivered envelope. But Lucie Hunter was an observant and perceptive woman. There was not much that went on in her family that she was not aware of.

“I cannot imagine what might be upsetting the duchess,” Maggie replied. “We had a lovely day in town. Perhaps she is regretting her decision to come here at this time of year. The weather has been worse than usual, and she does hate being shut in with nothing to do.”

Mama set the bread on the sideboard along with a hunk of hard cheese and a jar of jam. “Perhaps. You’ve been out of sorts yourself lately.”

“Not at all. I was tired. Shopping with Auntie Jeanne can be exhausting.”

“I was thinking of the way you reacted to Jeanne’s suggestion that Frederick play at the church,” Mama said as she cut slices of cheese and arranged them on a small plate. “Was it the idea of Frederick playing or the thought of returning to the church?”

“Mother.” Maggie’s tone sounded a warning.

“It has been months now,” Mama continued as if
Maggie had not spoken. “Even for Christmas Eve you found an excuse.”

“I was attending you,” Maggie protested. “You were very ill.”

“Eleanor Pritchard told me she offered to stay with me while you went with your father to services but you refused.”

Maggie stirred the pot and eased it back onto the heat. She added the cod and spices and set the lid in place. “I wasn’t—it was too soon.”

“And now?”

“Oh, Mama, please don’t fret over me. I will be fine but it will take time.”

“It would be easier if you would share the burden of your grief in prayer,” she replied. “I’m going to look in on Mr. Witte, a man of deep faith according to Sarah.”

“He’s sleeping,” Maggie reported, but Mama took the plate of cheese and crossed the hall anyway. Do not be fooled, Maggie wanted to warn her mother, but she knew such warning would be useless.

Lucie Hunter’s devout belief that God solved all problems was unshakable. Normally she was not given to the kind of missionary zeal practiced by some, but when she saw someone in the throes of deep distress, she firmly believed that that person needed God’s help. Further, she was convinced that such help was readily at hand if only the person would turn to God through prayer rather than away from it. “The answers are there,” she had assured Maggie after Michael and George had died on the battlefield. “You must only listen and hear God’s answers for your grief and pain.”

Maggie found herself dwelling on thoughts of Michael as she ladled chowder into a bowl and added three thick
slices of Sarah’s rye bread. More specifically, she found herself comparing Michael with Stefan, not physically, but in the way she felt whenever she was with the German. With Michael she had always felt as if nothing bad could ever possibly happen to either of them. Their childhoods had been idyllic and their courtship the stuff of fairy tales. But whenever she was with Stefan, her mind was filled with far more serious matters, the hard challenges of life that she and Michael had never had to face, living as they did on an island far removed from the everyday stresses and troubles of the rest of the world.

With Michael she had never known a care, but the very presence of Stefan raised all sorts of weighty questions, matters that previously Maggie had been willing to leave to her parents or Michael. And the way Stefan looked at her, the way he seemed to assume his own suffering and loss connected somehow to hers, made her want to rise to the unspoken challenge she felt emanating from him.

Outside the bedroom door, she hesitated because rather than the low murmur of her mother’s prayer or Bible reading, she heard laughter—her mother’s and Stefan’s. And when she pushed open the door, she saw that her mother was shaving off Stefan’s beard and keeping him entertained with stories of her coming to America. Stories Maggie had heard as a child.

Stefan was more at ease than she’d ever seen him. Gone was the wariness that always clouded his gaze when he looked at her. As he conversed with Mama, his facial features were rested and relaxed with none of the tenseness and caution that she’d become accustomed to seeing. Without the heavy beard and mustache he looked younger, more vulnerable somehow. He laughed and she saw the
fullness of his lips and the whiteness of his teeth. Was this an act put on for Mama’s benefit to gain sympathy?

Stop it, she ordered herself. Stop questioning his every word or glance.

“Feeling better, are we?” Maggie said and hated the shrewish tone of her voice. She placed a napkin under Stefan’s chin while Mama took the shaving brush, razor and basin to the sink to rinse them out.

Mama turned and addressed Stefan. “Now, Stefan, you mustn’t overdo it. Dr. Williams tells us that you are still at risk for pneumonia, so you must be sure to get your proper rest and nutrition.” She dried her hands and returned to his bedside as he took the first spoon of chowder. “How are your fingers and toes coming along?”

“Better, thank you,” Stefan replied. “Later, Maggie—Nurse Hunter—will help me to stand and perhaps in a few days to walk.”

“Well, won’t it be lovely to get out of this room for a bit?” Mama said. “You can sit in the parlor for part of the day or perhaps go outside to the porch for some fresh air. Sean can lend you a coat.”

“That would be very nice.”

Maggie bustled about adjusting the draperies to allow in more light, straightening the precise order of medicines on the dresser, folding hand towels and hanging them in a perfectly aligned row on the washstand. The very idea that he could go outside, where anyone might see him, was ludicrous. What was Mama thinking?

“Well, Stefan,” she heard her mother say as she stood with a rustle of her wool serge skirt, “I am pleased to see that you are making progress. You did give us all a terrible fright that first night, but clearly God has work for you to complete here
on this earth before He calls you home.” She brushed back a lock of golden hair that had fallen over Stefan’s forehead.

“Thank you for your kindness, ma’am,” Stefan replied.

Mama smiled and headed for the door. “I’ll see you at home, Maggie,” she said.