Love Grew Among the Marigolds

Martha Clay was sixteen when she met the man she wanted to marry. He was twenty-three, and to her, little more than a stranger from the middle of nowhere in southern Ohio. She had noticed him, though. He wasn’t particularly handsome, not like the man she had thought she loved, Ashley Jonas.

It was 1866. Her father, seeking to rebuild his crushed textile business, had decided he needed to get a foothold in New York City. The garment district was booming, and if he could land contracts with a few of the volume manufacturers, they would be set.

The two set off from Montgomery, Alabama, travelling mostly by train through Cincinnati, and finally to New York City. It was on the train that Martha had first eyed Ezekiel Hammond. His clothes were rumpled, and his trunk battered as he stood on the platform. She’d noticed him partly because he was so tall. He seemed to tower over those around him, not just in height, but also in presence.

New York was exciting. There were hundreds of carriages and wagons, and a throng of pedestrians crowding the sidewalks… and even the streets. Martha Clay had never dreamed there could be so many people in one place.

She had accompanied her father to Williams Brothers’ Garments. The stranger was sitting in the anteroom as they entered, newspaper in hand. A moment after they had arrived, he was summoned to see Mr. Williams, personally coming out to greet him, all smiles and handshakes.

Her father set down his samples case and waited. The time of their appointment came and went. Still, they waited, the tall stranger taking his time with Mr. Williams. But, when it seemed like they should give up, he emerged again, Mr. Williams at his side, clapping his back and laughing at some joke told during their walk from the interior of the office.

“Mr. Clay,” the secretary said after a moment, Mr. Williams having already retreated to his office, “you may go in.”

As they had rehearsed seemingly hundreds of times, Martha began their sales pitch, rather than her father. He dutifully produced the proper sample as she deftly rolled through her presentation. They had fifteen minutes of his time before he sent them off with a non-committal thanks for coming to visit him. They had three more meetings over the next two days.

***

In the third meeting, Martha once again noticed the stranger from Ohio. This time, as last, he was more pressed and polished than the day he’d boarded their train. And again, he emerged with the principal, each of them all smiles and handshakes. This time, however, when they exited their meeting, he was patiently sitting in the waiting room, rising as they emerged from the office.

She’d glanced at her father as the two men shook hands. Mr. Hammond glanced her way, then bowed in an old-fashioned way, gently shaking her hand, and sounding like a prince of old, “Ma’am, I’m pleased to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance.” She giggled despite herself.

“The pleasure is certainly ours, good sir,” her father had responded. “I’m Hollis Clay, and my daughter Martha.”

“Ezekiel Hammond,” he said, his smile broad and bright. “I’m afraid that more than once, I have commandeered your time, making delay for you to speak with others on business. I would be grateful for the opportunity to make that up to you by buying you both lunch. Assuming you have time, that is…” That was when she first learned his name. Ezekiel. She’d had to stifle a titter at the archaic name.

“That isn’t necessary, Mr. Hammond,” her father said.

In the end, Mr. Hammond had insisted, and her father relented. She found herself sitting in a small café in New York City, enjoying lunch as the staff of the establishment lavished a wonderful lunch upon them.

At the end of lunch, Mr. Hammond had again bowed deeply as he took Martha’s hand, thanking them both for the graciousness of their company and for having eased his loneliness rather than allowing him to dine alone. He produced a card and handed it to her father. He took her hand again, and she thought she caught the slightest glean there. He then turned and strode away, leaving them to their remaining appointment.

***

Near the end of 1869, Martha came across the card in her father’s effects.

Ezekiel Hammond, Johnson Mercantile, Gallipolis, Ohio.

She thought for a moment, his name quickly bringing the man into focus. She’d never met another named Ezekiel and smiled at the thought of the tall man that had treated them to lunch. She sat down at her desk and penned a letter, inquiring if he needed fabric for his mercantile.

Her father had procured a few contracts on their trip to New York, where she’d met the stranger, but it was barely enough for their mill to sustain itself, much less support her and her family. And since her father had passed away, it had become increasingly difficult for her to land contracts of note, business principals not wanting to meet with such a young woman. And because of her mother’s deteriorating health and the age of her sisters, responsibility for the mill had fallen to her.

***

Martha Clay was doing everything she could to save the family business, ravaged by the war, then rising material prices. But then came the knock on her office door.

“Mr. Hammond, what a pleasant surprise,” she said, opening the office door herself for lack of an assistant.

“Miss Clay,” he nodded, extending his hand. “First, allow me to offer my condolences on the loss of your father. I’m flattered to have made an impression. Or at least I hope to be flattered and not appalled for the content of it.”

She thanked him for the sympathies and invited him into her office. Because she didn’t know what else to do, she went straight to business, talking to him of their milling capacity, breadth of products and ability to provide fabric of various types. He smiled and nodded, allowing her to sell him on how beneficial they could be for each other.

They spent the afternoon talking back and forth. She loved to hear his ideas. He did want to buy fabric and textiles from her, but he also seemed genuinely interested in both her and the business. And as they talked, she found herself interested in him as well.

“Miss Clay, may I offer a suggestion?” he said as she finished up. She nodded. He continued, “Come with me to Ohio for a couple of weeks. Let’s see if we can make an arrangement.”

“Mr. Hammond, that does sound intriguing, but I’m afraid it wouldn’t be proper.”

Ezekiel nodded, understanding what she had not said. She was a young, unmarried woman and making a trip like that might be seen as a stain upon her moral character, as well as his. He didn’t know her well enough to know that appearances had always been ranked as very important.

But the other thing she didn’t say was that she found him to of more interest than she had expected. She’d long thought her life planned out. She even had a promise ring from a potential suitor, one that she had thought had captured her heart. But sitting and talking with Ezekiel Hammond had been an unanticipated bump in that perfect plan.

“My aunt has accompanied me on the trip… she wished to rest today… Ethel Johnson Handel, proprietrix of Johnson Mercantile. Where would you suggest we dine this evening, of course, I would also like to invite you, as well as your family, should they be interested.”

She noticed a twinkle in his eye. She wondered if it had been there the whole time, or if it was new. Regardless, she demurred and suggested a small, family-owned dining room near his hotel.

Three days later, with his aunt accompanying them as a chaperone, Martha Clay found herself in the dining car of a train, retracing the trip she’d made with her father barely over three years before. When she stepped off the train in Cincinnati, bound for a river boat that would take them to Gallipolis, she had become decidedly interested in the stranger from Ohio. His charm made more and more of an impression upon her.

Travel took most of a week, and after visiting Johnson Mercantile in Gallipolis, Martha agreed to visit Ezekiel’s family farmstead, thirty or so miles to the north. Stepping from the sedan carriage, she looked around, seeing the hills beyond the valley in which the farm was situated.

“Ezekiel,” she said, her eyes alight with excitement, “there is such beauty here. I never imagined.”

“There certainly is beauty to behold,” he said, his eyes lingering on hers.

She held his gaze for a moment… a moment longer than was proper… then cast her eyes away. Since the time she’d been in New York, she had missed the vibrance of the big city. The rapidity, raucousness and scale. There were almost a million people there in New York. Here, she could count the houses on her hands.

Over the next few days, she fell in love with it. She and Ezekiel rode every inch of the valley on horseback. The few places they couldn’t ride, it seemed to her as if they walked. He knew everyone, and it wasn’t lost on her that he was well-liked. Also not lost on her were the jealous glances from young women as they traversed the valley.

Martha looked over at Zeke. He was tall and slender, but she also knew that his leanness belied a strength. He wasn’t particularly handsome, but his smile was warm and invited her to smile as well. His blue eyes glinted in the light, laughing at everything around him, except her. When he looked at her, she saw love reflected in his eyes.

It was a whirlwind, but on a spring afternoon, sitting on a blanket in a field of marigolds behind the large red barn, Ezekiel Hammond rolled to his side and up onto a knee. He slipped a ring from his watch pocket on his vest and proposed. Her breath caught in her throat.

“Martha, I began a journey in September of 1866. I thought it was to New York City to procure clothing lines for the mercantile, but the real purpose, apparently ordained, was to lose my heart. I must confess, that my intentions weren’t completely pure when I invited you and your father to lunch. I wanted to get to know you. I had thought my bashfulness a curse when I left not knowing I would see you ever again.

“Imagine my excitement when you contacted me, long after I had given up the fantasy of hearing from you. Then, as a bolt from heaven, I received your letter. It was all I could do to not load a horse and make straight away for Montgomery. But alas, duty and family made for delay.

“Then, upon seeing you again, those weeks ago… I knew I must endeavor to win your heart,” he said, smiling through adoring eyes.

“Zeke, thought my heart would belong to another, but being with you, I feel a love I never thought possible.”

Martha, always one for propriety found herself leaping upon her new fiancé, tackling him to the ground and kissing him with a passion she’d not known. Moments later, they were rolling among the marigolds, on the edge of consummating their relationship.

A month later, in the shadow of the barn which had allowed them discretion in their passions, standing among the marigolds, they were wed by the local minister as he made his monthly visit to their valley. The place where he’d proposed became the place in which they were wed.

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Next in the series is "The Rest of Their Days."