Refining Emma Read online

  Refining Emma

  Copyright © 2007

  Delia Parr

  Cover illustration by Bill Graf

  Cover design by Paul Higdon

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2012

  eISBN 978-1-4412-0843-9

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

  Dedicated to all of my students,

  past and present,

  who have shared their journeys

  with me for the past twenty years.

  May God continue to bless you all

  with His love and compassion

  and wisdom.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  PROLOGUE

  AT HILL HOUSE, LOCATED AT the far northern end of the village of Candlewood, Widow Emma Garrett was sharing a quiet supper in the kitchen of her boardinghouse with her family and staff. She glanced at the people sitting around the table, realized that they did not chat as easily at mealtimes as they had always done, and wondered how much longer she could carry the burden of the secret she had been keeping from them for months.

  Her mother-in-law, Widow Mercy Garrett, was sitting next to her. She answered to Mother Garrett to everyone to avoid the confusion of having two women in the same household with the same title and name—for guests and staff alike. At seventy-six, she had a large girth, a big heart, and more gumption than anyone Emma had ever met. The elderly woman did, however, have a tendency to see the dimmer side of life, and Emma was reluctant to give her any cause for worry by sharing her secret with her.

  Reverend Glenn, the retired minister who had made Hill House his home with them after suffering a stroke, was sitting at the head of the table. His faithful dog, Butter, sat close-by, waiting for a table scrap. At seventy-one, the man was very frail, but his faith was strong and his heart was loving. If Emma shared her secret with him, he would be very understanding. But he would also feel that his presence in her household only added to her troubles.

  The two young women on the staff, Liesel Schneider and Ditty Morgan, sat opposite from Emma and her mother-in-law. At sixteen, they were hardworking and extremely reliable, and they were both struggling their way to adulthood. Their families depended on the wages the young women earned for their survival, and Emma loathed the thought that they might be forced to look for other employment.

  Tempted to tell them all tonight, Emma struggled to find the words but failed. Troubled, she simply continued to eat in the silence that surrounded her, when an ominous, deafening rumble, resembling a heavy clap of thunder, shook the boardinghouse from roof to cellar. Behind quivering curtains, the kitchen window rattled. The floorboards trembled, and hot soup sloshed against the sides of just-filled bowls before slowly gentling.

  Caught completely unaware, Emma stiffened and braced her hands on the edge of the table, even as her mind struggled to make sense of what was happening. A thunderstorm in the depths of winter would be highly unusual, but this winter was odd. By this time of year, Candlewood was typically buried by one snowstorm after another, but they had yet to see more than a dusting of snow so far. This clap of thunder, however, felt different somehow and far stronger than anything she had ever experienced at any time of year.

  She quickly glanced around the table again and saw her own surprise and confusion mirrored in the others’ expressions only moments before an ear-shattering roar forced her to her feet. With her heart pounding, she pushed her chair away from the table, scrambled to her feet, and scurried from the kitchen. She raced through the dining room to the center hallway and charged past the two front parlors to get to the front door, her companions following on her heels.

  Emma hurried outside to the wraparound porch, which offered a commanding view of the skyline and the town below, as well as the skies overhead. As the other women gathered beside her, leaving Reverend Glenn waiting just inside the front door, frigid wind whipped at her skirts. She wrapped her arms at her waist and stood close to the porch railing as she searched the night sky in vain for visible signs of what had to be a horrendous, mammoth storm system.

  She furrowed her brow. The skies above Hill House were clear. Not a single cloud blocked the light of the full moon or the stars twinkling brightly on a bed of velvet that stretched across the full breadth of the horizon. Not a sliver of lightning sliced through the sky. Save for the sound of the swirling winds, the night was thick with silence.

  Shivering, she lowered her gaze and studied the outline of the town below as the wind continued to whip at her body and chill her to the bone. As usual, only fireflies of light marked the homes and businesses there, including the factories and warehouses along the frozen canal, where workers had yet to finish their workday.

  Confused that she could find no explanation for the rumbling sound that had sent them all rushing outside from the supper table, she nevertheless let out a sigh of relief to relax her tense muscles. She flinched the moment she heard a loud blast, accompanied by an amazing flash of light that illuminated the factories in the center of town. She watched, wide-eyed, as flames shot high into the sky. Once the heavy, gusting winds filled the air with the distinctive smell of phosphorous and burning wood, she knew the source: the match factory.

  She clutched her heart. Horrified by the thought of workers who might have been killed or injured in the blast, she abandoned her own concerns and tucked her secret deeper inside her troubled heart. As Mother Garrett and her two young charges pressed closer to her at the railing, Emma pointed to the flames and what seemed to be a massive fire that was spreading quickly, even as she struggled to accept the undeniable thought that the rumble they had heard earlier had come from the same area. “Did you hear that? Do you see that? It—it must be the match factory. There must have been an explosion there. And now . . . now it’s on fire,” she groaned.

  “My father! My brother!” Liesel wailed and ran from the porch.

  Emma charged after her, running down the steps and across the front yard. She caught up with the young woman before they reached the front gate. Beneath the gentle light of the swaying lantern that hung over the gate in
the wrought-iron fence, she tried to pull Liesel into her arms, but the sixteen-year-old kept struggling to get free. “Let me go! I have to go! My father and my brother work at the match factory. I . . . I have to go. . . .”

  “It’s not safe. With the canal frozen, there’s little to be done to keep the fire from spreading, especially in this wind,” Emma argued.

  Liesel nearly pulled free, but Emma kept a firm grip on one of her arms. “I have to go! Please! I must go!” she pleaded.

  “I know you’re worried about your father and your brother, but you can’t go alone,” Emma said, realizing she could not expect to keep the young woman from going into town to check on her family. “Besides, you wouldn’t get very far dressed as you are before you froze to death. Just . . . just calm down long enough to put on your cape and bonnet and a pair of gloves. I’ll get mine and go with you.”

  Ditty joined them and put her arm around her distraught friend. “I’ll go with you, Liesel. Don’t worry. I’m sure your father and brother are fine. You’ll see. Come inside. We’ll both get dressed properly and then we’ll go straight to your house.” She paused and looked up at Emma. “Is it all right, Widow Garrett? May I leave with Liesel to take her home? We’ll be careful.”

  With her cheeks stinging from the wind and the smell of smoke getting stronger and stronger, irritating her nose and throat, Emma hesitated. Now was not the time to remind the two young women they were still under punishment for their misadventure last fall and were not allowed to leave Hill House without an adult to accompany them. “Only if you promise not to go anywhere near the match factory. It’s far too dangerous, and you’ll only be in the way. Stay together and go directly to Liesel’s house. I’ll need to go into town to see how I can help, too, but you two can go ahead. I’ll stop to see you both in a little while. If everyone is all right, then I’ll bring you both back here,” she said as she ushered the two young women back to the house.

  Mother Garrett and Reverend Glenn, along with Butter, were waiting for them in the front hallway. While the two young women rushed to their room to get their winter outerwear, Emma tried to rub warmth back into her arms. “I told Liesel and Ditty they could go to Liesel’s house to make sure her brother and father are all right. I think I should go into town to see how we can help.”

  Mother Garrett dabbed at her eyes. “There are bound to be some people who’ll need a place to stay, at least for the night. I’ll make up some beds while you’re gone.”

  Reverend Glenn, his aged face wearied with concern, reached down to pat his dog on the head. “I think it would be best if I went down to the parsonage. Reverend Austin will need some help, but you go ahead. You’ll make it faster without me and Butter here.”

  Emma locked her gaze with his and smiled. “Maybe I would, but I’d rather not go alone. We can go together,” she suggested, then turned to take his coat from the oak coat rack and handed it to him. “We’ll need to bundle up first before we can leave.” She silently prayed that God would help them all to transform the horror of this night into a channel for His glory and to guide them to those who would need their help the most.

  1

  ALL OF CANDLEWOOD WAS IN MOURNING.

  Four days after the explosion and fire at the match factory, which had quickly spread to other businesses and homes, Emma Garrett was almost ready to leave Hill House at midmorning, but she was already tired. She stole a glance at the mirror above the small dresser in her bedroom and quickly looked away. Although her pale blond hair had been neatly braided and coiled at the nape of her neck and her dark brown gown fit her slender frame well, her blue eyes were dull with exhaustion and faint circles under her eyes had darkened overnight.

  With little energy to waste worrying about her appearance, she hurried down to the first floor. For the past three days she had spent endless hours in town helping to care for those injured in the tragedy, only to return each night to work side by side with her staff to accommodate the townspeople who had been left homeless and were temporarily living at Hill House.

  After stopping only long enough to don her hooded cape and thick gloves, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the front porch, quickly closing the door behind her. One glance at the brick lane that led to the bottom of the hill made her sigh. Garnering enough energy to climb back up that hill at the end of this day would take far more energy than she had right now, and she dared not think about how difficult it would be later tonight.

  She lifted her gaze and scanned the scarred town below. The tragedy that had befallen her beloved Candlewood had brought heartache and misery to many others, but Hill House was intact and her loved ones, as well as Liesel’s father and brother, had been spared. She should scarcely be worrying about having enough energy to climb back up that hill tonight to get home—not when so many others were struggling to climb up from the ashes of their grief to rebuild their very lives.

  Emma blinked back tears of frustration, fatigue, and sorrow as guilt tugged at her conscience. Given the scope of the tragedy, she felt selfish for worrying about her own troubles. In all truth, she had found neither the time nor the opportunity to share her secret with anyone at Hill House. If she were really honest with herself, she would admit that she really did not want to tell them she had been caught in a legal quagmire that had nullified her purchase of Hill House, nor that she was living in a perpetual state of limbo while she waited for the legal owner of Hill House to arrive and decide whether or not to let her purchase the property again.

  She carried her secret alone, except for her lawyer, and she had not heard a word from him for months.

  Before she slipped into self-pity, Emma concentrated on the troubles facing the other townspeople. Even from this distant vantage point, she could see that the match factory had been reduced to rubble, along with several other businesses and nearby homes. The immediate area surrounding the core site of the initial explosion and fire was nothing more than a blackened crater of complete devastation. Other buildings in town, scattered about like dark pock marks, had sustained a wide variety of damage, ranging from minimal to severe.

  Sadly, the timing of this tragedy in winter only compounded the destruction. Had the explosion and fires occurred between April and November, volunteers could have used the water in the canal to fight the fires. At this time of year, however, the canal was frozen solid, and volunteers had been forced to watch almost helplessly until the fires burned themselves out.

  Unfortunately, they would not know until the spring thaw if the walls of the canal itself had sustained any damage from the explosion. The general consensus was that, at best, the canal would have leaks that would necessitate draining the canal to make the repairs in the spring. At worst, this entire section of the Candlewood Canal would have to be rebuilt, a prospect that threatened economic destruction far beyond the immediate losses within the town itself.

  As she studied the town, she could see some of the roofs on the storefronts and homes along Main Street, including the General Store, which she had sold four years ago before buying Hill House. It appeared to be merely scorched or just blackened with soot. From here, she could not see the cracked and broken windows or the store signs that were covered with ashes or soot, but she knew they were there. She had seen them every day as she walked along Main Street.

  Because of the direction of the wind the night of the fire, all of the workers’ homes on the very southern edge of town had escaped any damage at all. Likewise, most of the homes and businesses at the far north end of Main Street had fared well, confining most of the devastation to the very center of town, although there seemed to be little rhyme or reason in terms of which buildings had been destroyed or damaged, while others escaped unscathed.

  Emma drew in a deep breath and stiffened her back. Homes and businesses, even livelihoods, would be rebuilt eventually—but the loss of life and the serious injuries of those hurt in the explosion or fires, however, had left many hearts and dreams broken, and they would take much
longer to heal.

  Determined to help the healing process continue and to keep the uncertainties of her own life at bay, she tugged her hooded cape tight against her, descended from the porch, crossed the yard, and let herself out the front gate. The frigid air was still heavy with the acrid scent of charred wood and smoke that irritated her raw throat. The closer she got to the bottom of the hill, the more acrid the air became, and she snuggled her face deeper against the inside of her hood, grateful for the soothing aroma of lavender that scented the fabric.

  She turned onto Main Street at the end of the lane and hurried into town past a number of intact homes. Like Hill House, they were also overflowing with families whose homes or businesses had been destroyed or damaged. Some of those families would stay in Candlewood to rebuild their lives; sadly, others would leave to seek shelter with friends or family elsewhere and never return.

  When she reached the church, Emma paused for a moment as the echoes of the church bell tolling incessantly only the day before yesterday rang once again in her mind. She glanced at the empty church and sighed. Nearly everyone in town had congregated here for a sad and solemn burial service, and many had been forced to stand outside in the biting cold for lack of room inside. They had all walked together in a sad procession to the cemetery behind the church where Emma’s grandparents, parents, and beloved husband lay at rest.

  There, below a bleak, gray sky, the workers killed in the tragedy—seven men and three boys—had been laid to rest.

  Emma whispered another prayer for the families they had left behind before she continued on her way. As she passed the parsonage, she made a mental note to stop there later on her way home to see Reverend Glenn. He was staying there temporarily with Reverend and Mrs. Austin to be closer to the families who had suffered the loss of a loved one and to comfort those who had been injured. His presence at Hill House, however, was sorely missed, and she hoped he might come home soon.