Harp on the Willow Read online

  ALSO BY BJ HOFF

  EMERALD BALLAD

  Song of the Silent Harp

  Heart of the Lonely Exile

  Land of a Thousand Dreams

  Sons of an Ancient Glory

  Dawn of the Golden Promise

  RIVERHAVEN YEARS

  Rachel’s Secret

  Where Grace Abides

  River of Mercy

  MOUNTAIN SONG LEGACY

  A Distant Music

  The Wind Harp

  The Song Weaver

  STANDALONES

  American Anthem*

  Song of Erin**

  Harp on the Willow

  *American Anthem is a trilogy that includes: Prelude, Cadence, and Jubilee.

  **Song of Erin includes two complete novels: Cloth of Heaven and Ashes and Lace.

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Scripture quotations are from the Contemporary English Version © 1991, 1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, used by permission, and from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover by John Hamilton Design

  Cover Image © givaga, Jon Bilous, v.gi, Josh Cornish / Shutterstock; Greg Komar

  Published in association with the Books & Such Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  HARP ON THE WILLOW

  Copyright © 2018 by BJ Hoff

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97408

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  ISBN 978-0-7369-2067-4 (pbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-7369-4299-7 (eBook)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Hoff, BJ, author.

  Title: Harp on the willow / BJ Hoff.

  Description: Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017035103 (print) | LCCN 2017040278 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736942997 (ebook) | ISBN 9780736920674 (paperback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Christian / Historical. | FICTION / Christian / Romance. | GSAFD: Christian fiction. | Love stories.

  Classification: LCC PS3558.O34395 (ebook) | LCC PS3558.O34395 H37 2018 (print) | DDC 813/.54 — dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017035103

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  DEDICATION

  For Jim, Dana, Jessie, and Eric

  No writer ever had a better support team.

  We hung our small harps on the willow trees.

  PSALM 137:2

  CONTENTS

  Also by BJ Hoff

  Dedication

  1. A Doctor’s Day

  2. Walking Through Mount Laurel

  3. A Holliday Meal

  4. Big News

  5. A Visit to Owenduffy

  6. Sunday Special

  7. Serena

  8. Meeting Murphy

  9. An Unexpected Offer

  10. Mixed News

  11. Long Days

  12. When the Work Is Everything

  13. The Problem of Serena

  14. An Idea from a Friend

  15. A Rejection—and Some Advice

  16. An Early Morning Surprise

  17. A New Patient

  18. Morning Musings—and a Surprise

  19. The Beginning of a Long Day

  20. An Eventful Day

  21. A Disturbing Visit

  22. A New Idea

  23. An Unexpected Invitation

  24. A Day of Trouble

  25. At the Mine

  26. Time of Despair

  27. Questions

  28. An Unpleasant Surprise

  29. Darkness Falling

  30. The Doctor as a Patient

  31. Visitors

  32. Hurried Exits

  33. Night of Fire

  34. Coming Home

  35. Words Spoken Too Quickly

  36. Deliver Us from Evil

  37. Miss Gladys Meets the New Houseguest

  38. A Farewell from Serena

  39. Epilogue

  Discussion Questions

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  A DOCTOR’S DAY

  Here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy.

  ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

  Potomac Highlands of West Virginia

  July 1869

  Daniel Kavanagh, MD, was given to defining a good day as one when the elderly and somewhat eccentric Miss Gladys Piper had no more than one imaginary disease that required treatment during her office visit.

  A good day got even better when not a single man from the hill folks came down and threatened to hurt him unless he accompanied him back up the hollow to “fix his woman.”

  And if he happened to meet Serena Norman on his way to lunch at Helen’s Mountain Inn—well, Daniel figured that would serve to make any day just about perfect.

  By eight thirty on this oppressively hot and muggy Monday morning in July, he had already resigned himself to the fact that it was not going to be a good day. To begin with, he had learned over the weekend that Serena was off to Buckhannon for a week, visiting an aunt. The fact that he had to hear this news secondhand rather than from Serena herself stung more than he cared to admit.

  And now, as he and Sarge the Newfoundland walked into the waiting room of his office and found not only Miss Gladys Piper waiting for him, but also a hatchet-faced man with one black eye, badly swollen, and a long, dark beard that all manner of creatures could have nested in, Daniel submitted then and there that indeed, this was not going to be a good day. Not at all.

  Miss Gladys, of course, did not have an appointment, and Daniel was fairly certain the man with the black eye was not in the book either. In truth, with Audrey, his receptionist, at home with a sprained ankle, he didn’t actually know who was in the book. The patient log was solely Audrey’s responsibility, which in her mind meant that neither Daniel nor anyone else was to touch its hallowed pages except in case of a genuine emergency.

  Audrey Truman had let it be known in crystal clarity that if Daniel wanted her to stay on upon his predecessor’s retirement and subsequent passing she would do so only on her own terms—and those terms meant that she would continue to manage the office precisely as she had under Dr. Franklin.

  At the time, Daniel had thought he would not have it otherwise, for although Audrey might be something of a martinet, she did keep the office running with admirable efficiency. And even if he didn’t always respond well to her autocratic and uncompromising way of doing things, he never failed to appreciate the headaches she saved him on a daily basis.

  At times like these, when he knew next to nothing about the day’s agenda—and when he was facing a surly looking mountain man in addition to an obviously impatient Gladys Piper—he found himself appreciating Audrey even more.

  He left the Newfoundland in his customary place, in front of the
waiting room counter, then proceeded to take Miss Gladys into the examining room. As he closed the door behind them, he heard the Newfie utter a low growl, which Daniel knew to be not so much a warning to the dangerous-looking man in the waiting room as a reminder to Daniel that he should not be taking all day with the business at hand.

  “Sidney Franklin never kept me waiting.”

  Daniel turned from washing his hands and smiled at the feisty spinster lady who sat as far forward as possible on the end of the examining table, her slender, prominently veined hands folded primly in her lap.

  “I do apologize, Miss Gladys. I didn’t realize you had an early appointment.”

  She didn’t exactly sniff her disapproval. She didn’t have to. The doctor had seen that look before. Nor did she admit that she didn’t have an appointment. Miss Gladys had never seemed to feel the need for such formalities.

  “Well, now,” he said cheerfully, “why don’t you tell me what the problem is? Not the heart palpitations again, I hope.”

  She ignored his question. “Where is Audrey?”

  “Unfortunately, Audrey tripped Friday evening over an exposed tree root in her backyard and sprained her ankle. I expect she’ll be out until later in the week. So—how have you been since I saw you last, ah…last Monday, wasn’t it?”

  A week was about as long a time as Miss Gladys ever went between visits.

  “Audrey was always a careless girl.”

  Audrey was sixty-two years old, and Daniel doubted very much that she even knew the meaning of the word careless. But he merely smiled and said, “I’ll be sure to mention to Audrey that you asked after her. Now, why don’t you tell me what brings you out this morning? It’s going to be another sizzler, isn’t it?”

  Although she had a fine buggy at her disposal, Miss Gladys almost always walked the short distance from her stately brick home on Laurel Street. She was fond of saying, to anyone who might inquire as to why she didn’t use the buggy for excursions, that she did not believe in pampering herself.

  “It’s my ears,” she said in reply to the doctor’s question.

  “Your ears?”

  “They’ve been ringing. It’s very annoying.”

  “I’m sure it is.” Daniel paused, thinking. “I don’t recall your mentioning this when you were in last week, Miss Gladys. Exactly how long have your ears been troubling you?”

  Her answer came with no hesitation. “Since Friday. Four days now.”

  “Well, let’s just have a look.”

  He checked her ears, being careful, as he had been instructed during previous examinations, not to “muss” her elaborately dressed red hair.

  The blazing red hair was the one affectation—if it could be so termed—that Miss Gladys allowed herself. The only resident of Mount Laurel who knew just what it took to restore the crowning glory of a woman Gladys Piper’s age, a style that featured a fiery cloud of waves and curlicues, was Hester Marshfield. Hester’s self-proclaimed ministry was to the women of Mount Laurel who required assistance with “maintaining a comely appearance at any age.”

  It was widely held that Hester Marshfield was privy to all manner of ladies’ secrets. And secrets they remained.

  “Everything looks perfectly fine, Miss Gladys,” he told her. “But let’s check your pulse and listen to your heart, shall we?”

  As he expected, nothing seemed amiss. Miss Gladys’s heartbeat was strong and precise, her pulse that of someone half her age.

  While Daniel wouldn’t think of minimizing her symptoms, he was grateful that Sidney Franklin had volunteered his opinion on these “ailments” of Mount Laurel’s wealthiest resident. Gladys Piper was, according to his predecessor, a thoroughly lonely woman. She had spent her entire life in Mount Laurel, living alone for many years with scarcely anything to occupy her interest or her time except her flower garden and her piano. She had never married, had no remaining family, and, at her advanced age, had seen most of her friends and acquaintances pass on before her.

  Doctor Franklin had been convinced—and Daniel was coming to the same conclusion—that Miss Gladys’s many maladies were most likely of her own invention. Sidney Franklin had contended that the doctor’s office was the one place where Miss Gladys could count on receiving someone’s undivided attention and a measure of concern for her well-being.

  That being the case, Daniel almost always made it a point, as had Doctor Franklin before him, to spend a generous amount of time with her, even to fuss over her a bit—without, of course, engendering any undue alarm about the state of her health, which was, in his opinion, remarkably good.

  In truth, he had grown rather fond of Miss Gladys, in spite of the fact that she was seldom anything but acerbic and often downright testy with him. He figured it would probably take more years than Gladys Piper might have left before she gained any real trust in him, but in the meantime he would do his best to take proper care of her.

  To that end, he also prayed that his patience would not fail him.

  After completing the examination, he considered carefully how to advise her. “Well, Miss Gladys,” he finally said, “let me ask you some questions.”

  She looked at him, and Daniel wasn’t sure whether it was eagerness or a trace of concern he saw in her eyes.

  “How have you been sleeping lately?” he asked. “Any problems there?”

  Her chin lifted slightly, the finely wrinkled but still elegant long neck tightening. “None at all. I have nothing to clutter my conscience and keep me awake. I sleep like a baby, if you must know.”

  “That’s good,” Daniel said, not doubting her for a moment. “Very good. And what about your appetite recently? Have you noticed any difference in your eating habits?”

  One patrician eyebrow lifted in obvious disdain, as if she thought the question utterly foolish. “My appetite is exactly as it has always been. I adhere to a wholesome diet, and a moderate one.”

  Again, Daniel accepted her reply at face value. Gladys Piper’s militarily erect posture and unusually fine complexion and figure—for a woman of her years—seemed to confirm a lifetime of healthy habits.

  “Yes, of course,” he said somewhat lamely. “And I don’t imagine you use spirits, do you?” he said, giving in for an instant to the streak of Irish mischief that seemed bound to assert itself at the most inopportune moments.

  The look the woman turned on him would have withered a cactus.

  Daniel continued his inquiries for a few more minutes, learning nothing surprising. Based on Miss Gladys’s past history, he felt fairly safe in assuming that the recent ringing in her ears was merely another addition to her ever-expanding catalog of imaginary complaints.

  Even so, it wouldn’t do to take any symptom lightly. The woman was eighty-one years old, after all—a fact Daniel was fairly certain she had never divulged to anyone other than himself and the late Sidney Franklin.

  “Well, I don’t believe this is anything you should worry about, Miss Gladys,” he said, meaning to reassure her while not minimizing her concern. “Here’s what I’d like you to do. I want you to try taking more frequent rests throughout the day. A busy lady like yourself often tends to overdo. You may be taxing yourself too much. I want you to promise me that you’ll have a rest regularly between activities from now on.”

  He paused. “Incidentally, do you still garden as much as you used to?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Why indeed?

  “Yes, well, I’m going to ask you to confine your gardening to the early morning hours. This kind of heat isn’t good for anyone. And remember now—lots of rest.”

  After a few more minutes of conversation, during which Miss Gladys assured him that she would follow his instructions to the letter, Daniel escorted her from the office, reminding her that he wanted to see her in his office again the following Monday, or sooner if the ringing in her ears worsened.

  He told himself that even if he was fostering her tendency to invent, he couldn’t do otherwise than
take her numerous ailments as seriously as those of any other patient.

  Besides, he knew what it was like to be lonely, and he thought it would be an even harder thing to be old and lonely.

  He spent the next fifteen minutes trying in vain to convince the tough-looking mountain man, who called himself simply Ratliff, that he was not able to pull his “thumping” tooth.

  It was probably nothing but a kind of adolescent peevishness on his part that made Daniel bring the Newfie into the examining room, but there was a certain reassurance in having the large black dog nearby. Sarge seemed to have formed his own opinion of the man, and it wasn’t looking good for Mr. Ratliff.

  For his part, Daniel found it difficult to take his eyes off the man’s beard. He couldn’t be absolutely certain he had spotted movement in that matted brush, but he was suspicious all the same.

  “It’s as I told you, Mr. Ratliff, I’m not a dentist. I’m not in the least experienced at pulling teeth. You really don’t want me working on your tooth.”

  Mr. Ratliff glared at him through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut. “I told you, I don’t care what kind of doctor you be, dentist or not. This here tooth needs yanked. I tried to pull it myself, but I couldn’t get a good holt on it. That’s why I come to you.”

  Some of these fellows from the hollow could be awfully hot-tempered, Daniel knew, though on closer inspection he decided that Ratliff didn’t look as mean as he had first thought. Perhaps it was only the pain that caused him to screw up his face in such a way. All the same, you never could tell what one of these mountain men might do if provoked.

  He stood there, taking stock of his options. “You’re quite sure you want me to do this?”

  The man winced and put a hand to his jaw. “Yank it,” he said in a tone that brooked no further argument.

  Daniel delayed only a moment. Then, in spite of his better judgment and with some trepidation, he yanked it.

  He was rewarded with a gap-toothed, obviously pleased—if somewhat bloody—grin of satisfaction. “Why, you done real good, Doc! Yessir. Real good. Got ’er on the first try, and I felt nary a twinge.”