Susan Evans McCloud - For Love of Ivy

OTHER PUBLICATIONS BY SUSAN EVANS McCLOUD

Where the Heart Leads

My Enemy, My Love

Amelia's Daughter

By All We Hold Dear

I'm Going to Be Baptized

Not In Vain

The Heart and the Will

Songs of Life

Black Stars Over Mexico

My Child to Be

First Love, Last Love

Anna

Lady of Mystery

A Vow to Keep

A Dream to Follow

Jennie

Beloved Stranger

Abide the Dark Dawn

Ravenwood

Joseph Smith: A Photo Biography,
The Young Latter-day Saint's Library, Volume 1

All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright 1981 by Susan Evans McCloud

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company, at permissions@deseretbook.com or PO Box 30178, Salt Lake City, Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Desert Book Company.

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ISBN 0-88494-873-0

eISBN 978-1-62973-976-2 (eBook)

First Paperback Printing, 1993

Printed in the United States of America

To my grandmother, IVY DAVIS EVANS
And to my own mother, DOROTHY ...
Whom she loved ...

Each generation gathers together the imperishable children of the past, and increases them by new sons of light, alike radiant with immortality.
BANCROFT

Look where thy love comes;
yonder is thy dear.

SHAKESPEARE

W ould he come? Would he be waiting to meet me? This was our final, long descent into the valley. We had crossed Last Creek nineteen times-until our heads grew dizzy, and from the mouth of the canyon gazed down upon the City of the Great Salt Lake.

Earlier I had bathed in the creek water, washed my matted hair, and put on my other dress. It was worn and faded, but at least it would be clean.

There were butterflies in my stomach. Was it just five miles till we reached the valley floor? They seemed to stretch into fifty, and with each step the strange, tight feeling in my throat, the churning inside me, grew stronger. Jane Graham came up and walked beside me. Her fair English skin was burned a deep copper by the sun, and there were lines and wrinkles around her kindly eyes.

"Your mother should be here," she said simply.

Jane and my mother had been the best of friends for twenty years. They had raised their babies together back in England. I shaded my eyes and swallowed the lump that suddenly came to my throat. Three weeks-if only she could have made it three more weeks!

"I feel she is here," I answered. "Don't you?"

Jane wiped a tear away with her roughened hand.

"Yes, dearie, Meg Simpson wouldn't miss this day for nothin'. She's somewhere here abouts all right, and probably a far sight more comfortable than the two of us, eh, Ivy?"

We walked in silence a moment, then she turned her bright, searching eyes upon me.

"How long is it, Ivyseven, eight months since you've seen him?"

"Ten months. Ten months, one week, and four days"

Jane laughed and threw her strong, freckled arms around me. "He'll be there, dearie, don't you fear. He'll be there."

I didn't feel as certain. Ten months was a long time. Sometimes I couldn't even quite remember what he looked like. His voice, that held music and laughter no matter what he was saying; I couldn't quite recall it anymore.

"He's very clever," I found myself replying, "and very handsome. He'll try anything once, and he has that provoking sparkle in his eyes. There must be a lot of pretty girls between here and England."

"Have you no faith in the boy? Shame on you, Ivy!"

It wasn't that. But how could I explain? For ten, long months I had waited for this moment. Nights on the ship and under the wagon, I'd pictured our meeting dozens of ways in my mind. I looked down at my dress, faded and covered already with layers of fine dust. Was my own face as weathered and wrinkled as Jane's?

"I'll braid your hair and wind it the way he likes, hon'." Jane pinched my cheek and her bright eyes began to sparkle. "I've still got a trick or two up my sleeve. I'll have you all prettied up for Hamlet. Don't you worry!"

A new wagon train entering the valley was cause for excitement. Our arrival must have been heralded for there were hundreds of people gathered to greet us. Groups of fresh-faced children skipped from wagon to wagon, curious to stare their fill at the newcomers. For a moment or two, I forgot about watching for Hamlet. Everywhere I looked there was so much to see! The valley sprawled, long and wide, pulling the eye with it toward the wall of circling mountains on the west and the thin, silver line which I took to be the salt water lake. There were no green meadows with wide-spreading trees, but large stretches of fields had been planted, houses built, and lots laid out with gardens and young trees. There was a feeling of freedom and promise in the air.

Suddenly, all about me people were finding one another. I stood and watched mother embrace daughter, friend embrace friend, and an aching for my own mother caught inside me. Tears, much to my frustration, blurred my eyes. I wanted to belong here, but I felt myself a strangerapart and alone.

I didn't recognize the young man pushing his way toward me. He wore rough clothing and a short, trim beard with a thin mustache. His hair, bleached by the desert sun, was light and mottled. Nothing about him was familiaruntil he looked at me and held me with his eyes. Then my breath caught painfully in my throat.

He was lean and hardened, and taller than I remembered, moving with a lithe sureness, swallowing up the distance between us. He threw back his fair head and laughed, and the sound washed over me with a sweet, tingling sensation. He paused as he reached me and stood, leaning easily back on his heels, to observe me with warm, appraising eyes. I met his gaze with a growing sense of warmth and elation, and I saw the casual manner leave him and a look come into his eyes; a new look I had never seen there before. I couldn't describe it, but I can still feel the sense of warmth and love and tenderness it gave me.

He moved closer and touched my hair with a tentative hand. Then his lips found mine with the same sweetness and tenderness I had seen in his eyes. When he drew back, reluctantly, his eyes were sparkling again. He stroked his red-blonde beard self-consciously.

"I'll shave it off if it bothers you, Ivy."

His voice! How could I have forgotten one note of that musical voice?

"I like the beard," I said, reaching out to touch it.

"Ivy, how can you be prettier than I remember? I was sure when I saw you again I'd take one look and ask myself, 'Whatever in the world attracted you to this girl?'"

He was teasing me. It had always been his greatest delight to tease me!

"Where's your mother," he asked, "off gossiping with Janie Graham? After four thousand miles of sand and ocean, haven't those two had enough of each other?"

As soon as the words were out, he knew the answer. He could see it in my face and my eyes.

Hamlet is a sensitive man. He didn't try to comfort me with awkward words, he just pulled me close against him and let me cry. In the midst of that noise and confusion, those hundreds of busy people, he stood and held me, and he seemed to lend some of his strength and serenity to me.