Chapter Ninety-Four
The muscle of his heart contracted. “Regina?”
“Your daughter, Thomas,” Priscilla repeated.
Thomas stood up, so abruptly he struck the handle of the tea strainer, splattering brown stains and tea leaves on the white damask cloth. “I do not wish to discuss Regina with you, Priscilla. I have to go. I’ll see myself out.”
“Before you hear me confess that I lied to you about her paternity?”
Thomas had picked up the book and almost reached the door. He froze in step, then slowly turned around. “You lied?”
“I wouldn’t have, if I’d known you’d divorce me. That you would do such a thing—even consider such a maneuver—never occurred to me. People in your circle do not divorce.”
Thomas stood motionless. “It was not a maneuver, Priscilla. It was a straightforward rule of action to your admission of adultery.”
Priscilla got up from the table, a little shakily, Thomas noted. The flesh had darkened beneath her still bright blue eyes. Was she ill, he wondered, or simply showing the physical effects of her reclusive life, evident in the drawn shades, the musty odor, and the forlorn impression that sunlight and people rarely entered her house?
“I wanted to hurt you—and deeply,” Priscilla said, using the table for support as she stepped around it. “I knew the only way I could strike at that cold heart of yours was through Regina.”
Thomas’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know what your game is, Priscilla, but I’m not playing. Frankly, I don’t give an ant’s piss whether you slept with Duncan. Regina’s paternity doesn’t matter. She was my daughter in every sense of the word, if not my flesh and blood.”
“Now who’s lying?” Priscilla said. A mixture of triumph and appeal shone in her eyes. “You know damn well you wrestle in your sleep at night—cry—from the devastating possibility that the daughter you loved, worshiped, adored had been fathered by another man. By day your memory of her is tainted with the thought that the blood of a union soldier, the enemy you fought against, a Yankee, ran in her veins—that the daughter to whom you attributed the finest of your families’ traits was no more a Toliver…a Wyndham…than I am.”
Thomas swallowed hard, unable to veil the pain she must surely read gripping his throat. Yes, for years after Regina’s death, even now, the image of his daughter could not come to him in memory without the grief of her death compounded by the wretchedness of wondering if the child of his heart belonged to another father.
“If it pleases you, Priscilla, then of course it matters,” Thomas said, “and you may take satisfaction in the assurance that yes, indeed, you hurt me where I could feel no greater pain.” He opened the door.
“That’s why I asked you here, Thomas—to tell you the truth. You’ve got to believe it,” Priscilla called in a strained voice as he stepped into the foyer.
Thomas took his hat from the hall tree. “Why should I?” he said.
“Because I’m dying and I want to make things right.”
He paused and turned to study her. “Are you lying to me, Priscilla?”
“Well, I suppose you’ll know shortly, won’t you?” she said with a derisory toss of her head. “Thomas, I’m too weak to argue with you. You can believe me or not. I slept with Andrew Duncan three times, and they were not when I could have gotten pregnant, so Regina could be no one’s daughter but yours.”
Thomas stepped back into the parlor for a closer look at his former wife to determine if she was lying or telling the truth. With Priscilla, it was hard to know, but he did not doubt she was sick. He noticed the more pronounced pallor of her skin, the deeper sockets of her eyes and hollow cheeks. He felt a wave of pity for her, but he could not let sympathy override his knowledge of the deceit of which she was capable.
“How do I know you’re not merely telling me what I want to hear? That this…confession isn’t a way to make amends for a despicable claim you now wish you hadn’t uttered?”
Priscilla closed her eyes tiredly. “Think what you like. I’ve said my piece. You can believe it or not. What the hell do I care if you live out your life always wondering. You have Jacqueline”—Priscilla spit out the name—“to comfort you.” Carefully, slowly, Priscilla walked over to draw the bellpull, then fell into a chair, swallowed by a puff of silk and crinolines. “Now you must leave so I can take my pain medicine. My girl is good to see I take just the right amount.”
The book under his arm, his hat in hand, Thomas felt himself at a loss what to think. Did he believe her or not? He wished she’d made a stronger case to relieve his doubt. Was she really dying…his son’s mother? He said, “Priscilla, I…are you telling me the truth…about everything?”
“I have said what I had you come to hear, Thomas. I don’t owe you anything more than that. What you do with it is your lookout. Now get out.”
“I am sorry your life is ending this way.…”
Priscilla waved aside his expression of sympathy. “My only regret is that I didn’t marry someone who would have appreciated me like Major Andrew Duncan did.”
Thomas said, “I regret that for you, too, Priscilla.”
“But I was a good mother, and I delivered three beautiful children.”
“Yes, you were, and yes, you did, Priscilla. No one can fault you for that.”
“Send Vernon to me. Tell him to come as soon as possible and without his wife. She’ll make him the happiest husband alive, but everybody else in his life better watch his back.”
“That’s what my mother says.”
Priscilla grinned sickly. “Good ol’ Jessica. She’s not one to miss a trick.”
The maid entered, carrying a tray of medicines, and went straight to her mistress sitting listlessly in a chair by the window. She set the tray on a table and drew the draperies even closer against the afternoon sunlight, adding to the parlor’s gloom. Priscilla had closed her eyes and seemed to have forgotten Thomas’s presence. While the maid unscrewed the cap to a bottle, he went to her chair and pressed her hand. She did not respond. He turned to leave and she said without opening her eyes, “There is one way you can be sure Regina was yours, Thomas.”
He halted in his tracks. “How?” he said.
“Read the history,” Priscilla said and opened her mouth wider to receive the spoonful of liquid sleep.