The Glassblower(68)

Ruth laughed at Johanna’s disarming honesty.

“Well that’s certainly going to come in handy in affairs of the heart!”

They ate their cake in silence. While Johanna gazed fixedly down at her plate, Ruth’s thoughts wandered back to her first night with Thomas.

After the May dance had ended in such disarray, they had made their way up to the forest the following evening instead. Thomas hadn’t gotten anything ready but a blanket and a couple of candles. Though it was far from the magical, romantic setting Ruth had hoped for, she had let him pull her down onto the blanket. Thomas had kept his part of the bargain by announcing their engagement at the village dance, so she couldn’t back out now. His compliments that evening had been oddly halfhearted. He told her that he thought of her night and day and that she was beautiful, but he stumbled through the words as though they were a poem he had been forced to learn by rote. Straight after that, his hands were hunting around under her skirt. Greedily. Possessively.

Ruth’s mouth was dry. She swallowed a bite of cake.

After that it all had happened very fast. He had shoved her legs apart with his calloused hands and pressed her body down onto the blanket. The mossy forest floor beneath was lumpy; there was something digging painfully into her back—a root or a stone or a pinecone; and she felt cold, though she hadn’t dared complain. The last thing she had wanted to hear just then was some remark about how overly sensitive she was.

And then?

She had squeezed her eyes shut and tried to conjure up some of the romance she had so desperately wanted for the occasion. Groaning and breathing heavily into her ear, he thrust into the chill of her body—and it hurt. Ruth had been relieved when he finally let go.

Involuntarily she pressed her legs together. The sudden movement made Johanna look up. Ruth smiled at her and took a sip of coffee.

She had been so shocked by the nasty dampness between her legs!

When Thomas had seen her dismay, he had simply laughed. “That’s the elixir of life! You’ll have to get used to that.” Then he had taken her in his arms and they had looked up at the night sky to search for stars together. But it was overcast that night. All the same, these were, for Ruth, the most beautiful minutes of the evening.

She sighed and looked across at Johanna.

“Mrs. Heimer—it’ll take me a while to get used to that.”

“How do you think I’ll manage?” Johanna asked.

They both had to laugh.

“Is he really Prince Charming, like you used to dream about when you were a girl?” Johanna asked quietly.

Ruth was quiet. It was an important question. Not for Johanna, she realized, but for her.

She certainly couldn’t claim that he catered to her every whim. But it wasn’t stinginess that made Thomas treat her so . . . unimaginatively. That was just the way he was. If she enthused to him about something she had seen in one of the magazines that Johanna brought home, he merely looked at her with blank incomprehension. “You and your silly ideas,” he would say. But was that any surprise? Thomas had grown up in a household that sneered at sophistication.

At last she answered, “No, he’s not Prince Charming. But what would I do with someone like that in Lauscha?” She smiled coquettishly. “I’d rather have the son of the richest glassblower in the village. After all I’m no princess myself; I’m just a perfectly ordinary girl.”

“No you’re not,” Johanna replied decisively. “Thomas couldn’t find a woman anywhere in Lauscha or beyond who’s prettier than you or cleverer or works harder! Don’t you hide your light under a bushel, not even for a moment!”

Ruth was deeply affected but popped the last piece of cake into her mouth to hide it. “Sometimes I have my doubts,” she admitted. “Marie has her painting; you’ve got your work here in town and earn a good wage. But me . . . ?”

“You’ll soon be the mother of a curly-haired little blond angel, and we’ll all be wildly envious of you,” Johanna said, grinning. “But before that you’ll be the prettiest bride Lauscha has ever seen.”

“The dress is wonderful, isn’t it?” When Ruth thought of the big packet under the table, her melancholy vanished. “Eva will be so jealous she’ll burst!”



The two sisters hugged good-bye in the doorway of Strobel’s shop. Ruth was already outside when she turned around one more time.

“Where has Strobel gone anyway?” Though she wasn’t really interested, she felt a twinge of guilt after talking about herself and Thomas all afternoon.

“I have no idea,” Johanna answered darkly. “But given the fuss he made about it you’d have thought he were setting off for a trip around the world.”