“I get that. You’re not waiting for me to say, all right, Harper, we’ll do this your way. You’re just going to make sure I do.”
“See how quick you catch on?”
She had to laugh, and clutching the flowers in one hand gave in and linked her arms around his neck. “In case you’re interested, I’m glad you’re going to be staying with me. Next time I have my spine tingled, I’d as soon you be there.”
“I will be.”
“If you’ve got more work to do out here—”
She broke off when Logan strode down the path. “Sorry. Something’s up,” he said. “Better come on back in.”
HAYLEY FELT THE excitement, like a hum in the air when they stepped back into the library. She took a quick scan first, saw Lily playing cars with Gavin and Luke on the floor by the fireplace David had filled with flowers for the summer months.
Spotting her mother, Lily began to jabber and interrupted her game to come over and show off her dump truck. But the minute Hayley lifted her, Lily stretched out her arms for Harper.
“Everybody’s second choice when you’re around,” Hayley commented as she passed her over.
“She understands I know the fine points of Fisher-Price. It’s all right,” he added. “I’ve got her. What’s up?” he asked his mother.
“I’m going to let Mitch explain. Ah, David, we can always count on you.”
He wheeled in a cart with cold drinks, and finger food for the kids. “Gotta keep body and soul together.” He winked at the boys. “Especially around this house.”
“Y’all get what you want,” Roz ordered. “And let’s get settled.”
While the wine looked tempting, Hayley opted for the iced tea. Her stomach wasn’t quite a hundred percent yet. “Thanks for looking out for my girl,” she said to Stella.
“You know I love it. It always amazes me how well the boys play with her.” Stella brushed a hand down Hayley’s arm. “How’re you feeling?”
“A little off yet, but okay. You know what this is about?”
“Not even a glimmer. Go on and sit. You look worn out.”
As she did, Hayley grinned. “You’re getting a little southern in your accent. Yankee southern, but it’s starting to creep in. Kinda cute.”
“Must come from being outnumbered.” Because she was concerned with how pale Hayley looked still, she sat on the arm of the chair.
“How long you going to keep us dangling?” Logan complained, and Mitch stood in front of the library table.
Like a teacher, Hayley thought. Sometimes she forgot he’d been one.
“Y’all know I’ve been in contact for several months with a descendant of the housekeeper who worked here during Reginald and Beatrice Harper’s time.”
“The Boston lawyer,” Harper said and sat on the floor with Lily and her truck.
Mitch nodded. “Her interest has been piqued, and the more she’s looked for information, the more people she’s spoken with, the more invested she’s become.”
“Added to that Mitch has been doing a genealogy for her—gratis,” Roz added.
“Tit for tat,” he said. “And we needed some of the information anyway. Up till now she hasn’t been able to find a great deal that applied to us. But today, she got a hit.”
“You’re killing us here,” Stella commented.
“A letter, written by the housekeeper in question. Roni—Veronica, my contact, found a box full of letters in the attic of one of her great-aunts. It’s considerable to sort through, to read through. But today, she found one written by Mary Havers to a cousin. The letter was dated January 12, 1893.”
“A few months after the baby was born,” Hayley added.
“That’s right. Most of the letter deals with family business, or the sort of casual conversational observations that you’d expect—particularly in an era when people still wrote conversational letters. But in the body of the letter . . .” He held up papers. “She faxed me copies. I’m going to read the pertinent parts.”
“Mom!” Luke’s aggrieved voice wailed out. “Gavin’s looking at me with the face.”
“Gavin, not now. I mean it. Sorry,” Stella apologized. She took a deep breath and determined to ignore the whispered argument from behind her. “Keep going.”
“Just hold on one minute.” Logan rose, walked over to crouch and have a conversation with the boys. There was a cheer, then they scrambled up.
“We’re going to take Lily out to play,” Gavin announced, and puffed out his chest. “Come on Lily. Wanna go outside?”
Clutching her truck, she deserted Harper, waved bye-bye, and took Gavin’s hand. Logan closed the door behind them. “We’re going out for ice cream later,” he said to Stella as he walked back to his seat.
“Bribery. Good thinking. Sorry, Mitch.”
“No problem. This was written to Mary Havers’s cousin, Lucille.”
Leaning back on the library table, Mitch adjusted his glasses, and read.
“ ‘I should not be writing of this, but I am so troubled in my heart and in my mind. I wrote to you last summer of the birth of my employers’ baby boy. He is a beautiful child, Master Reginald, with such a sweet nature. The nurse Mister Harper hired is very competent and seems both gentle with him and quite attached. To my knowledge, the mistress has never entered the nursery. The nurse reports to Mister Harper, and only Mister Harper. Belowstairs Alice, the nurse, tends to chatter, as girls often do. More than once I have heard her comment that the mistress never sees the child, has never held him, has never asked of his welfare.’ ”
“Cold bitch,” Roz said quietly. “I’m glad she’s not a blood ancestor. I’d rather have crazy than cruel.” Then she lifted a hand. “Sorry, Mitchell. I shouldn’t interrupt.”
“It’s okay. I’ve already read this through a couple times, and tend to agree with you. Mary Havers continues,” he said.
“ ‘It is not my place to criticize, of course. However, it would seem unnatural that a mother show no interest in her child, particularly the son who was so desired in this house. It cannot be said that the mistress is a warm woman, or naturally maternal, yet with her girls she is somewhat involved in their daily activities. I cannot count the number of nurses and governesses who have come and gone over the last few years. Mrs. Harper is very particular. Yet, she has never once given Alice instructions on what she expects regarding Master Reginald.
“ ‘I tell you this, Lucy, because while we both know that often those abovestairs take little interest in the details of the household, unless there is an inconvenience, I suspect there is something troubling in this matter, and I must tell someone my thoughts, my fears.’ ”
“She knew something wasn’t right,” Hayley interrupted. “Sorry,” she added with a glance around the room. “But you can hear it, even in what she doesn’t say.”
“She’s fond of the baby, too.” Stella turned her wineglass around and around in her hands. “Concerned for him. You can hear that, too. Go on, Mitch.”
“She writes, ‘While I told you of the baby’s birth, I did not mention in previous correspondence that there was no sign in the months before that Mrs. Harper was expecting. Her activities, her appearance remained as ever. We who serve are privy to the intimate details of a household and those who live in it. It is unavoidable. There was no preparation for this child. No talk of nursemaids, of layettes, there was no lying-in for Mrs. Harper, no visits from the doctor. The baby was simply here one morning, as if, indeed, the stork had delivered him. While there was some talk belowstairs, I did not allow it to continue, at least in my presence. It is not our place to question such matters.
“ ‘Yet, Lucille, she has been so separate from this child it breaks the heart. So, yes, I have wondered. There can be little doubt who fathered the boy as he is the image of Mister Harper. His maternity, however, was another matter, at least in my mind.’ ”
“So they knew.” Harper turned to his mother. “She knew, this Havers, and the household knew. And nothin
g was done.”
“What could they do?” Hayley asked, and her voice was thick with emotion. “They were servants, employees. Even if they’d made noise about it, who would listen? They’d have been fired and kicked out, and nothing would have changed here.”
“You’re right.” Mitch sipped from his glass of mineral water. “Nothing would have changed. Nothing did. She wrote more.”
He set down his glass, turned the next page. “ ‘Earlier today a woman came to Harper House. So pale, so thin was she, and in her eyes, Lucy, was something not only desperate but not quite sane. Danby—’ That was the butler at the time,” Mitch explained. “ ‘Danby mistook her for someone looking for employment, but she pushed into the house by the front door, something wild in her. She claimed to have come for the baby, for her baby. For her son she called James. She said she heard him crying for her. Even if the child had cried, no one could hear in the entrance hall as he was tucked up in the nursery. I could not turn her away, could not wrest her away as she ran wildly up the stairs, calling for her son. I do not know what I might have done, but the mistress appeared and bade me show the woman up to her sitting room. This poor creature trembled as I led her in. The mistress would allow me to bring no refreshment. I should not have done what I did next, what I have never done in all my years of employment. I listened at the door.’ ”
“So she did come here.” There was pity in Stella’s voice as she laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “She did come for her baby. Poor Amelia.”
“ ‘I heard the cruel things the mistress said to this unfortunate woman,’ ” Mitch continued. “ ‘I heard the cold things she said about the child. Wishing him dead, Lucy, God’s pity, wishing him and this desperate woman dead even as she, who called herself Amelia Connor, asked to have the child returned to her. She was refused. She was threatened. She was dismissed. I know now that the master got this child, this son he craved, with this poor woman, his lightskirt, and took the baby from her to foist it on his wife, to raise the boy here as his heir. I understand that the doctor and the midwife who attended this woman were ordered to tell her the child, a girl child, was stillborn.
“ ‘I have known Mister Harper to be coldly determined in his business, in his private affairs. I have not seen affection between him and his wife, or from him for his daughters. Yet I would not have deemed him capable of such a monstrous act. I would not have believed his wife capable of aligning herself with him. Miss Connor, in her ill-fitting gray dress and shattered eyes, was ordered away, was threatened with the police should she ever come back, ever speak of what was spoken of in that room. I did my duty, Lucille, and showed her from the house. I watched her carriage drive away. I have not been easy in my mind since.
“ ‘I feel I should try to help her, but what can I do? Is it not my Christian duty to offer some assistance, or comfort at the very least, to this woman? Yet my duty to my employers, those who provide the roof over my head, the food I eat, the money which keeps me independent, is to remain silent. To remember my place.
“ ‘I will pray that I come to know what is right. I will pray for this young woman who came for the child she birthed, and was turned away.’ ”
Mitch set the pages down. And there was silence.
Tears slid down Hayley’s cheeks. Her head was lowered, as it had been during the last page of Mitch’s recital. Now she lifted it, and with her eyes shining with tears, smiled.
“But I came back.”
seventeen
“HAYLEY.”
“Don’t.” Mitch stepped forward as Harper sprang off the floor. “Wait.”
“I came back,” Hayley repeated, “for what was mine.”
“But you weren’t able to get to the child,” Mitch said.
“Wasn’t I? Didn’t I?” In the chair Hayley lifted her arms, held her palms up. “Aren’t I here? Didn’t I watch him, didn’t I sing him to sleep, night after night? And all the others who came after? They were never rid of me.”
“But that’s not enough now.”
“I want what’ s mine! I want my due. I want . . .” Her eyes darted around the room. “Where are the children? Where are they?”
“Outside.” Roz spoke quietly. “Playing outside.”
“I like the children,” Hayley said dreamily. “Who would have guessed? Such messy, selfish creatures. But so sweet, so soft and sweet when they sleep. I like them best when they sleep. I would have shown him the world, my James. The world. And he would never have left me. Do you think I want her pity?” she said in a sudden rage. “A housekeeper? A servant? Do you think I want pity from her? Damn her and the rest of them. I should have killed them in their sleep.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Her gaze shifted, latched on Harper. “There are other ways to damn. So handsome. You are so like him.”
“I’m not. I’m yours. The great-grandson of your son.”
Her eyes clouded, and her fingers plucked at the thighs of her pants. “James? My James? I watched you. Sweet baby. Pretty little boy. I came to you.”
“I remember. What do you want?”
“Find me. I’m lost.”
“What happened to you?”
“You know! You did it. You’re damned for it. Cursed with my last breath. I will have what’s mine.” Hayley’s head fell back, and her hand clutched at her belly before her body shuddered. “God.” She breathed out audibly. “Intense.”
Harper grabbed her hands, knelt in front of her. “Hayley.”
“Yeah.” Her eyes were blurred, her face white as paper. “Can I have some water?”
He brought her hands up, pressed his face into them. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Just as soon not. She was pissed. Thanks,” she said to David as he handed her a glass of water. She drank it down like a woman dying of thirst. “Pissed, then sad, then pissed again—all sort of over the top on the emotional scale. The letter got to her. Well, it got to me.”
She turned to Mitch with her hands still caught in Harper’s. “I felt so sorry for her, and for the housekeeper. I could see it. You know, how you do when you’re reading a book. The house, the people. I could imagine what it would be like if somebody had Lily, and I couldn’t do anything to get her back. ’Course the first thing I’d’ve done was clock Beatrice. The bitch. I guess I was getting pretty worked up, in my head, and she just sort of slid in.”
Her fingers tightened on Harper’s. “She’s twisted up about you. Mostly, she’s just twisted altogether, but she remembers you as a baby, as a little boy, she feels love for you because you’re her blood. But you’re his, too. And you resemble him, sort of. At least that’s how it seems to me. It’s confusing when it happens.”
“You’re stronger than she is,” Harper told her.
“Saner anyhow. Way.”
“You did great.” Mitch set his tape recorder aside. “And I’d say you’ve had enough for today.”
“It’s been a busy one.” She worked up a smile as she looked around the room. “Did I wig everybody out?”
“You could say that. Look, why don’t you go up, stretch out,” Stella suggested. “Logan will go out, check on the kids. Right?”
“Sure.” He stepped over to Hayley first, gave her head a pat. “Go on up, beautiful, take a load off.”
“I think I will, thanks.” Harper straightened, took her hand to bring her to her feet. “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys, I really don’t.”
Roz waited until they were out of the room. “This is wearing on her. I’ve never seen her look so tired. Hayley’s a bundle of energy most times. Hell, she wears me out just watching her.”
“We’ve got to finish this.” Logan walked to the door, opened it. “And soon,” he said before he went outside.
“What can we do?” Stella spread her hands. “Waiting and watching doesn’t seem like enough. I don’t know about the rest of you, but seeing that happen, seeing it, shook me right down to the bone.”
“I could go to
Boston, help Veronica sort through the papers.” Mitch shook his head. “But I’m just not comfortable leaving right now.”
“Safety in numbers?” Roz reached out a hand for his, squeezed. “I feel the same. To tell the truth, at this point I don’t like David spending so much time alone in the house.”
“She doesn’t bother me.” He’d poured a glass of wine and lifted it now in a half toast. “Maybe because I’m not a blood-related male. Add gay to that and I’m not of much interest to her. You can factor in that she’d see me as a servant. That puts me bottom of the feeding chain.”
“A lot she knows,” Roz replied. “But that’s logical, from her point of view, and does a lot to relieve my mind. Find her. She’s said that before.”
“Her grave,” Mitch put in.
“I think we’re all agreed on that.” Roz walked over, helped herself to a sip of David’s wine. “And how the hell are we supposed to do that?”
LATER, WHEN THE house was quiet and Lily slept in her crib, Hayley couldn’t settle. “One minute I’m ready to drop, and the next I’m all revved up. I must be really annoying.”
“Now that you mention it.” With a grin, Harper pulled her down on the sofa beside him. “Why don’t we watch the game. I’ll raid the kitchen for junk food.”
“You want me to sit here and watch baseball?”
“I thought you liked baseball.”
“Yeah, but not enough to zone out in front of the TV.”
“Okay.” He heaved an exaggerated sigh. “I’m about to make the ultimate sacrifice for my breed. Pick a DVD. We’ll watch a movie, even if it’s a chick flick.”
She eased back. “Really?”
“But you have to make the popcorn.”
“You mean you’ll sit here and watch a girlie movie without making snide comments?”
“I don’t remember agreeing to the second part.”
“You know, I like action flicks.”
“Now we’re talking.”
“But I’d love to watch something romancey, with a couple of good weep scenes. Thanks!” She pressed her lips noisily to his, then jumped up. “I’m loading the popcorn with butter.” At the door, she stopped and beamed back at him. “I feel better already.”
SHE’D NEVER HAD so many ups and downs in her moods in all of her life. From manic energy to exhaustion, from joy to despair. She ran the gamut, it seemed, every day. And under the swings, the spurts, and the tumbles was an edgy anticipation of what happens next. And when.
When she spiraled down, she struggled to remind herself of what she had. A beautiful child, a wonderful man who loved her, friends, family, a good interesting job. And still, once the spiral began, she couldn’t seem to control the fall.
She worried there was something physically wrong with her. A chemical imbalance, a brain tumor. Maybe she was going as crazy as The Bride.
Feeling harassed and overtired, she swung into Wal-Mart on her morning off to pick up diapers, shampoo, a few other basics. She could only thank God to be able to snatch this little window of alone time. Or alone with Lily time, she corrected, as she strapped her daughter in the shopping cart.
At least nobody felt they were obliged to watch her when she was away from Harper House or work. And watching was what they did. Like hawks.
She understood why, God knew she appreciated the concern and care. But that didn’t stop her from feeling smothered. She could barely start to brush her teeth without whoever was hovering offering to spread the paste on the brush for her.
She wandered down aisles, listlessly picking up what she needed. Then she detoured into cosmetics, thinking a new lipstick might cheer her up. But the shades seemed too dark or too light, too bold or too dull. Nothing suited her.
She looked so pale and wan these days, she decided if she put anything bright on her lips they’d look as though they walked into the room a foot ahead of her.
New perfume maybe. But every tester she sniffed made her feel slightly queasy.
“Just forget it,” she muttered, and glanced back at Lily who was trying to stretch out her arm to reach a spin rack of mascaras and eye pencils.
“Not for a long time yet, young lady. It’s fun being a girl though, you’ll see. All these toys we get to play with.” She chose one of the mascaras herself, tossed it in the cart. “I just can’t seem to gear myself up for it right now. We’ll just go on, get your diapers. And maybe if you’re good, a new board book.”
She turned down another aisle, reluctant to leave. Once she did, she’d need to take Lily to the sitter’s, go to work. Where somebody would be attached to her hip for the rest of the day.
She wanted to do something normal, damn it. More, she wanted to feel like doing something. Anything.
And an absent glance to her right stopped her in her tracks.
Something that was both panic and nausea, with a helping of dull realization spurted into her belly. It continued to rise as she did hasty calculations in her head.
While everything inside her sank, Hayley closed her eyes. She opened them