Beside Two Rivers

23





Strong gusts of wind shook Darcy awake, rattling the windows, causing the walls of her room to shudder, and hurling across Havendale like the waves of a boiling sea. She sat up in bed. Goosebumps bristled over her skin, and she glanced about the room. It had been a dream, but so real.

She began to remember—how her palm pressed against window glass, how the frost outlined her fingers, the tree with its heavy branches casting long shadows over patches of stiff brown grass, a silent sentinel on a winter’s night. Her swing glided back and forth on thick ropes encrusted with ice. Darkness and moonlight. A woman’s figure crossing the yard. Her cloak fanning out in the wind, flying forward around her legs. Gusts blew back her hood. Flaming red hair, illuminated like tongues of fire by the flame that flickered in a lantern near a hitching post.

She remembered creeping to the door in a pair of scratchy woolen stockings. Voices were outside in the hallway. Footsteps clattered up the staircase. Shadows moved on the wall. Muddy footprints marred the polished floor. Two figures disappeared into a room at the end of a passage. A shaft of candlelight spread out across the Turkish runner. She walked toward it.

Inching around the door, she saw her mother, her ebony hair, rich as the night sky, cascading past lean shoulders. Long strands covered her face as she grimaced in pain. Brilliant white teeth clenched, her eyes shut tight, her hands tearing at the bed sheets. That night, fear rose in Darcy and she remembered how she inched back after covering her ears to block out her mother’s cries. And there was another woman who stood by, holding Eliza’s hand, with a white mobcap over her hair.

A mist filled Darcy’s eyes, and when she blinked them back she saw an infant, wet and coated, squirming in the gentle arms of the cloaked woman. Her name was Sarah—the woman who bent down to her, her face like an angel’s. Darcy stepped down the hallway toward the staircase. Moonlight streamed through a side window and spread over the floor. Darcy called to Sarah and waited.

“Little miss. You should be abed,” Sarah scolded. “Is it the wind? Has it frightened you?”

“I’m not scared.”

She gazed up at the bundle in Sarah’s arms. “Can I see?”

Sarah moved the blanket aside. Damp soft curls clung to the baby’s head and a mew passed through the bow mouth. “She’s pretty, isn’t she? Skin the color of cream and cheeks rosy as dawn.”

She remembered how bewildered the event had made her feel, how in her innocent way she had asked, “Is this Mama’s baby?”

How she could have forgotten the sad look in Sarah’s face she did not know, nor the reply to her question. “This is my babe,” Sarah had told her. “Her name is Ilene. You understand?”

The answer had confused Darcy. “Then where is Mama’s baby?”

Red spirals tumbled over Sarah’s shoulders. “You ask your mother when you are older. But she’ll tell you, she has no babe except you.”

In all these years, Darcy had not forgotten the little girl with the bubbly giggle and shining eyes. She had not understood why Ilene had left the world so young—why she had left her. She remembered Fiona and her motherly ways and Sarah’s kindness as well as the wistful gaze in her eyes. Her mother’s face she could not recall, only the flowing hair and a voice that soothed her when she was afraid.

Fully awake, her heart ached with the visions. She clutched the front of her nightdress and yearned for Ethan—longed for home where her memories were born. Unable to sleep, she rose and dressed. Second best, the olive-green linen flowed past her waist. She slipped on her stockings and shoes. Then she brushed her hair back so it flowed down to her waist. He’ll come today—Ethan.

She crossed the floor to her window and gazed out at the moon hanging behind drifting clouds. A few hours and the sun would rise. Then a frantic voice called to her out in the hallway and Mrs. Burke opened the door. “Dear me,” she huffed and puffed her cheeks in and out. “Come quick. ’Tis your grandmother.”

When Darcy hurried into Madeline’s room, it lay in darkness save for a little light from the vermillion coals in the grate. Darcy groped her way to her, her bare feet not making a sound along the old rug. Maxwell sat by the hearth and looked up. Madeline opened her eyes and a soft cry poured from her lips.

“Hayward. Oh, my son, Hayward.”

Darcy leaned over. “Grandmother. I am here. What is it?”

Madeline searched for Darcy’s hand. Once she found it she gripped it with what Darcy knew was all the strength she could muster. “I have seen him. I have seen Hayward.”

Troubled, Darcy touched Madeline’s cheek. “A dream, Grandmother. Papa is far away in America.”

“No. No. I saw him, I tell you. I saw him as real as I see you. He spoke to me, told me he was sorry for hurting me. He asked if I would forgive him.”

A chill passed through Darcy and she glanced at Mrs. Burke as she stood near the bed wringing her hands in her robe. “Please bring a glass of port, Mrs. Burke.” And off the serving woman went.

“Darcy, please. You must believe me,” Madeline said.

“Tell me what happened. I am listening.”

“I was asleep, and the wind woke me. I looked over and saw the curtains at the terrace doors flutter, and then he stepped into the room. I did not know him at first and was so frightened I could not call out. He then said to me ‘Mother, it is I, Hayward.’ When he drew closer, I saw his face. It was Hayward. How could I forget my child’s eyes?”

“He told you his name?” Darcy’s hand trembled in her grandmother’s. From head to toe her body surged with both fear and elation. Could it be true? Could it really be him?

“He called me Mother, Darcy. Is that not enough for me to know? And his voice—it was the same, yet older. And yes, he said he was Hayward. As I beheld him, he lifted me gently by my shoulders and spoke. I scarce heard what he was saying, for I was so alarmed. I went to throw my arms about him, but when he heard Burke’s footsteps, he staggered back, and as she entered he slipped out the doors into the dark. He is ill, Darcy. What shall we do?”

“I shall find him.”

“How? Tell me. You cannot go out on the moors at night.”

“Do not worry.”

As if a seam in the clouds had split open, rain beat down on the house. Moments ago the moon had shone. Now a swiftmoving storm overtook it, and the room chilled with the wind flying through Madeline’s terrace doors. The curtains rose as if arms flung them to the ceiling. Darcy hurried to them, shut and latched the doors tight. But before she did, she peered out across the terrace and to the steps that led down to the lawn. Beyond it stood the stable. No one was in sight. But when she moved back, there on the floor were muddy footprints. Her heart swelled in her throat.

“Perhaps he is close by,” said Madeline, growing more desperate. She twisted the edge of her sheet between her aged hands. “He may have found shelter in the stable and is afraid to come back to the house for fear we will not believe him. And he knows what Langbourne would do to him if he did. That is why he came through to my room, and not the front door.”

Darcy moved back to the bedside. “But Langbourne is not here.”

Mrs. Burke returned with the glass of port. As she guided the glass into Madeline’s hand, she spoke calmly to her. “There, there. All shall be well.”

The port moistened Madeline’s lips. “I saw my son, Burke. You believe me, don’t you? Not William. No, it was Hayward.”

“Of course I believe you. Rest now.” And she drew the blankets up closer to Madeline’s chin. Darcy drew her aside and gave her a questioning look.

Mrs. Burke shook her head. “There was no one.”

“But the doors were still open when I came in, and there are muddy footprints on the floor. Go look.”

“The wind, Miss Darcy. The latch has never been too secure. And those prints could be made from the dust on the floor and the rain coming inside.”

Darcy looked back at the doors. She knew Mrs. Burke to be wrong. “Poor Grandmamma.”

“I hear you!” Madeline threw her hands to her face and broke into tears. “You both think I am mad. Or that I was dreaming.”

“A dream perhaps,” Mrs. Burke said. “But not mad.”

Darcy gathered the old woman in her arms to calm her. Madeline’s frail body trembled as if all the emotions of a lifetime had broken forth. She drew back from Darcy. “Go find him, Darcy. He cannot be far.”

Maxwell leapt up from his spot and with a growl scampered out the door. Darcy looked after him as he raced down the hallway to the staircase. Something drew him, alerted him to a presence.

She stepped out into the hallway and took up her candle. Worried that the man who could be her father had gone out into the storm, she hurried down the hallway to the staircase. Downstairs she hastened to don her cloak, slipped on her leather walking shoes, lit a tin lantern from the candlewick, and took from a hook on the wall a flintlock pistol in case she was wrong. With her heart pounding, she drew her hood over her hair, then lifted the bar over the door and pulled it open.

If it is true he is my father, God help me find him. Rain and a hungry wind struck her as she walked out into the torrential night rain.