Celestial Springs

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

1844

The crickets were putting on a symphony, filling the spring night with their melody which wafted about them on the breeze as the moon hung above, a perfect sphere of light and hope.

He was holding her hand, like he always did, despite her mother’s stern glances when she happened by to check on them. Mrs. Cawley wouldn’t know that he’d also kissed her—twice—and that, despite her mother’s warning that kissing boys was detestable--Genevieve had quite liked it.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to be heading home soon,” Spencer said just above a whisper as the moonlight danced in his pale blue eyes. “But I will see you tomorrow.”

Genevieve let out a sigh and absently tucked loose strands of auburn hair behind her ear. “You shall see me tomorrow, but not the day after.”

“I hope to, in the morning, before I depart,” Spencer assured her, clasping her hand even tighter. “And, Ginny, I won’t be gone that long this time, I promise you.”

“I know, I know,” she shrugged. “You’ve already explained to me a thousand times, Spence. Just a quick trip down and back….”

“To deliver one last shipment of flour….”

“And then home for good,” she finished, managing a weak smile. “But how can you know for sure?”

“Ginny!” He said her name so sweetly that even with the admonition she was sure was about to come, she couldn’t help but lose herself a bit in the melody of his voice. “I’ve told you. I will always return to you. You know that.”

She glanced down at the ground beneath them as it played by with the motion of the swing, looked at his hand clasped so confidently around hers, and back to those pools of blue. “I know, Spence,” she said for the thousandth time that day. “I just can’t help but worry.”

“Don’t,” he assured her. “Ginny, nothing on this earth could possibly keep me from returning to you. Not a thousand-foot-tall wave, not a sea monster the size of Backbone Mountain, not a pirate the likes of Black Beard. I will be back here with you, by the time that moon wanes two more times, holding your hand and causing you conniptions; you can be sure of that.”

Ginny couldn’t help but giggle at his conviction as she glanced up at the very moon he was still pointing to. “Two more waning moons?” she asked, her brown eyes deep in thought.

“Just two more,” Spencer promised. “And then I’ll be back to make you my wife. We’ll move into that house on Hanover, the one my father already purchased in my name. And we’ll start our life together in Otterbein.”

She had shifted her gaze from the glowing orb in the sky to the two twinkling spheres looking at her so intently. How had she gotten so lucky to have such a man as her own? Such a hardworking, successful, yet kind and generous, soul—who truly loved her with every fiber of his being. She licked her lips, hesitated, and then said, “All right, Spencer. But… I don’t want to wait.”

He c****d his head to the side a bit. “What’s that, Ginny?”

“I don’t want to wait to be your wife,” she explained. “Why must we? Why can’t we marry now, and then, I shall await you in our new home, in Otterbein, with a view of the pier. I’ll know the moment the Mary Ann comes back ashore.”

Spencer glanced down at the ground for a moment, his handsome face puckered up in thought. “Well, Ginny, you know I’d marry you this very moment if I could, but I don’t think your parents would allow it. Or mine either, for that matter. And the house isn’t ready—it’s sparsely furnished, and it needs a good cleaning. There’s no one there to wait on you….”

“All right,” Ginny agreed, shrugging her shoulders. “Maybe I don’t have to move into the house just yet. I can stay here with my parents. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t want to marry you before you go. Why not, Spencer? Why not pledge ourselves to each other before you depart so that when you return we don’t have to wait?”

“But your mother is planning quite the event….”

“I don’t care about any of that,” Ginny assured him. “I just want to be with you.”

Again, Spencer considered her words. He looked up at the moon, stealing glances as it passed by between the branches of the tree that sheltered them. After a long moment, he said, “We’d have to keep it a secret.”

Ginny knew that what he was not saying was the most significant part of his message. Without a word, she reached up, drew her lips together, and pretended to turn a key, tossing it out into the moonlit yard.

The sound of Spencer’s laughter filled the space beneath the tree, and Ginny couldn’t help but break her short-lived vow of silence to join with him. “All right, Miss Genevieve Cawley, you’ve convinced me,” he finally managed to say, “but you better leave those lips unlocked from time to time so that I may kiss you.”

“They’re unlocked right now,” she reminded him, and with a brief glance back towards the house to see if the chaperones were acting vigilant, he leaned in and took her breath away. Ginny found herself lost in his embrace, the feel of his soft lips pressed to hers clouding her thoughts beyond reason; if her mother would have come to check on her, she would never have noticed. Spencer was always the more attentive, whereas Ginny tended to float away. Here she was now melting into the moonbeams, forgetting herself entirely, Spencer filling her universe and causing her to lose track of anything and everything else.

After a moment, or several hours, she wasn’t sure, he pulled away and said quietly, “I have to go, but I shall see you tomorrow. And I will make you my wife.”

“And then, we shall always be together, no matter what happens,” Ginny nodded.

“Nothing could ever take me away from you, Genevieve Cawley,” Spencer reminded her. And Ginny believed him with her whole heart and all that she was.