Of course, I didn’t dare to tell Mama or Daddy! Mama would’ve burst into tears and Daddy would’ve lit out after Carissa with his pistol. And after all of this, Brand, my love…I still love her! My sister. I even miss her at times. What could make a person change so…as Carissa has?
And I think of the child…my niece or nephew…illegitimate though it may be…still it is an innocent baby. Through no fault of its own it will be born into poverty and disrespect. I can’t bear it, Brand Darling! What will become of her? For all she has done, I can forgive her. But Daddy won’t.
I’m glad, Brand. Glad that we gave her the money…it was the right thing to do. But ever I will be angry, I feel. The money, for food, I was thinking of the baby…and of her.. But now, seeing her…perhaps she wasn’t mocking me. Perhaps she is just happy to have the baby so that she won’t be all alone. That is how I will think of it, darling. She is still good…somewhere inside. I know it.
Oh, Brand…end this war soon and come home to me. Maybe the two of us…together…maybe we could change Carissa’s blackened heart.
I love you so, my Darling. My thoughts are of you every moment! My heart is with you…right there with you. I’m sending a kiss in this letter. Return to me soon! Your Loving Wife, Laura.”
Lauryn sat silent and astonished. What things had been revealed through this ancient letter?
“My hell, Lauryn,” Brant, mumbled as a thoughtful expression wrinkled his brow. “Sorry. But it would seem that we have begun to uncover another mystery in your family history.”
“Carissa? Her sister?” Lauryn mumbled. “I’ve never heard such a thing. Carissa died as a baby. It’s written right there in the family bible. By my Great grandfather’s own hand!”
“It’s obvious she didn’t die as an infant,” Brant offered. “Are you sure the bible said she died as an infant?”
Lauryn thought for a moment. “It says, ‘Carissa O’Halleran born June 20, 1847-died.’ You read it yourself.”
“No death date.”
“No. Just, ‘died.’ It’s the way they wrote it when a baby died. Isn’t it?” Lauryn’s mind was a jumble of questions.
“It’s apparent that there was some sort of falling out,” Brant mumbled thoughtfully, almost to himself.
“But my Nana has never even mentioned another sister livin’. Surely she would’ve if…” Lauryn reminded him.
“You know how families were back then, Lauryn. Especially in the south. If someone was disinherited, disowned…the family acted as if they had died. Or had never existed at all. And…” But he didn’t finish.
“Go on,” Lauryn prodded. Though, she knew before he spoke, that his mind was concocting the same story hers was.
“An illegitimate child. Reason enough in the old south for your great grandfather to have disowned a daughter,” he stated. “But why would the child’s origin hurt Laura?”
“I don’t know.” Lauryn exclaimed. “This…this is too much to think through rationally. A least all in one moment.”
“I know.” Brant shook his head, still struggling to believe it all himself. “And your grandmother never spoke to you about any of this?”
Lauryn shook her head. “No. No. All I ever knew was that there were two baby girls that died. At least, I always assumed they died as babies. In the family bible…it does say her name, birth date and then ‘died’. You saw it. One has a death date…she was just a few days old. I just always thought the other died at birth. Actually…I never thought much about it.” He nodded. “That’s all I’ve ever known. I never thought to ask otherwise.”
Brant stood up immediately. “We’ll read more of these later. I want to ask Aunt Felicity about this. Maybe she’ll remember something.”
“My own Nana hasn’t spoken of it. Why would you think your Aunt would know?” Lauryn was still in a sort of shock over the circumstances the letter had revealed.
“Your Nana was a member of the family and probably instructed to never speak about all this,” he explained. “My Auntie wasn’t.” He smiled then. “And besides, she loves a good bit of gossip.”
Lauryn smiled. His touch was magical. Whether in mere friendship or otherwise…and it would be hard not to beg him for it.
Chapter Seventeen
“Who was Carissa?” Brant asked bluntly.
“What, love?” Aunt Felicity mumbled looking up to him. Brant and Lauryn had sought out Brant’s aunt, finding her sitting in a rocking chair in the parlor working on her needlepoint. Brant had wasted no words of explanation, simply asked his question forthright.
“Carissa. Who was Carissa?” he repeated.
“Carissa?” Aunt Felicity asked.
“Lauryn O’Halleran’s sister, Carissa, Miss Felicity,” Lauryn clarified.
An expression of sudden enlightenment passed across Aunt Felicity’s face then. “Oh, my!” she breathed. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
“About Carissa O’Halleran, you mean,” Brant prodded.
“No. Well, yes. I’d forgotten all about it …that whole mess. The scandal!”
Brant looked at Lauryn and she at him, and Lauryn knew his neck was prickling with an odd anticipation just as hers was. “What mess?” he asked.
Aunt Felicity dropped her voice and put a delicate hand to her bosom dramatically. “I don’t know if I should say, dear. I’m not sure it’s my place.” Still, her eyes flashed with excitement.
“Please,” Lauryn encouraged. “I think it may be important somehow.”
Aunt Felicity looked about as if ensuring their privacy, then bending her head toward Brant’s and motioning for Lauryn to follow suit, she began.
“Well, as I remember, there were three O’Halleran girls. Lauralynn, Carissa and Virginia. Lauralynn was the eldest…a mere year older than Carissa. Anyway, when my brother Brand went to work for their Daddy, Carissa fell in love with Brand, too! But he only had eyes for Lauralynn. Oh, Carissa tried all manner of devious things to capture him away from Lauralynn, the way I remember it. But Brand loved Laura and only Laura. They were married in ’63. Well, Carissa was furious! Mad with fury! And showed up in her parent’s parlor one day saying that she was with child.” Aunt Felicity cleared her throat, actually blushed and whispered, in an even softer tone, “ And she said that the child was Brand’s!”
Lauryn gasped audibly and Brant’s brows wrinkled into a frown. “What?” he said.
“That’s the truth of it! She accused my own brother of…of such an atrocity. Well, we all knew it was a lie. A plain, ugly lie! And so did the O’Hallerans. Kiel O’Halleran was so furious that he disowned his daughter there on the spot. Threw her out of the house, expecting and all, and told her he never wanted to set eyes on her again.”
“And…what ever happened to her? To the baby?” Lauryn ventured, still trying to fully grasp what the woman had told them.
Felicity seemed thoughtful. She scowled pensively. “I don’t know. I can’t say for sure. I don’t ever remember hearing of her…or of the baby, for that matter. All I know is no one ever saw her again.”
Brant looked at Lauryn and mumbled, “No one but Laura.”
“Oh, Brand and Laura…for all the pain Carissa caused…they were mighty benevolent, if you ask me,” Felicity offered.
“What do you mean?” Brant pressed.
“Well, Brand once told me in a letter that, for all the pain Carissa had caused Laura, for all her lies…still Laura loved her and worried about the baby. There were several times that Brand sent money to Laura to secretly give to Carissa for food and clothing and things.”
“There’s an entry in his register. What did it say?” Lauryn mumbled.
“‘$10 United States Currency…sent to Lauryn to give to C,’” Brant answered. He paused for a moment. “Even in her letter, with her anger at her sister, even for such a betrayal…Laura was worried for her.”
“It was a sad end she met, I’ve no doubt,” Aunt Felicity sighed.
“What now, Brant?” Lauryn asked.
“All this…it’s relevant. I feel it.”
“We go back to Connemara,” Brant mumbled. “There’s something we’ve missed there, too. I think we need to finish reading Laura’s letters, then…in a few days we’ll go back to Connemara and finish Brand’s letters. We’ll go back there and find out what happened to Carissa, too.” Leaning over he placed an affectionate kiss on his Aunt’s sweet cheek. “Thanks Auntie. You’ve been….”
“Invaluable. I know,” she giggled.
“Really, Auntie,” he assured her. “You have.”
“Anything I can do to get you violating this girl out in the orchard again,” she whispered, winking understandingly at Lauryn. Lauryn gasped, surprised by the woman’s knowledge of what had transpired between her and Brant in the early hours that morning.
“Aunt Felicity, your spying and gossip will get you straight to Hell,” Brant grumbled, as he turned and stormed from the room.
“Brant isn’t the only one who likes to watch the sunrise from the orchard, Lauryn,” Aunt Felicity whispered. Lauryn blushed as the woman’s mischievously twinkling eyes burned into her own. “But don’t you worry, sweet pea. He’ll get over his knightly need to be gallant when he’s slain the dragon. Yep. Mark my words…you’ll be back in his arms soon enough.”
“Thank you for your help,” was all Lauryn could say. “All of it,” she added with a smile as she left the room.
Brant had already climbed the stairs and Lauryn could hear him heading for the attic. Was he serious? They’d only arrived the day before. He couldn’t possibly intend returning to Connemara in such a short time. A few days he’d said. Still, he was right. And her heart soared at the thought of his being back at Connemara with her.
“Brant?” Lauryn ventured as she stepped into the attic to find him angrily rummaging through the things that had been in the trunk. He’d already emptied the bottom of the trunk of its remaining bundles of letters and had the Captain’s ledger tightly in one hand.
“First we’ll talk to Laura,” he growled. “Then we’ll read the rest of these letters. We never finished Brand’s letters. There’s sure to be responses or something to these, the ones he sent the money in.” Brant was incredibly angry, and Lauryn knew it had nothing to do with what they’d just discovered. “I want to stay a few more days…help Dad and Parker start getting the orchards in shape. I’ve been gone too long and they need the help.”
“What’s the matter, Brant?” Lauryn asked.
“What’s the matter?” he nearly shouted. “Lauryn,” he began then, trying to calm himself. “I’m a man. Do you understand? I’m a man!” Lauryn simply nodded, trying not to smile. For some reason, there was something rather humorous about his sudden rage over his Aunt’s having spied on him. “I’m…I’m not made to sit around reading love letters, keeping my hands off…” He paused, his jaw clinching tightly as he studied her quickly from head to toe. “I need work. Hard work. I need to be keeping my body busy, my mind empty of things I can’t do anything about…I can’t be running back and forth, sitting on a train, reading letters, spending every waking moment, and most of my sleepless nights, trying to figure all this out! Life needs to go on for me.” Lauryn said nothing. She recognized his mood. He was frustrated now, needing to release some of the aggravation somehow. Too many variables in the day had taken their toll on his patience. So, she simply listened.
“A year ago, I was killing other men, Lauryn,” he told her. “Carrying a gun and killing other human beings. Do you understand what that does to a man? I was protecting my country, watching my friends die horrible deaths. I was walking around in death and mud so thick that sometimes I wondered if I wouldn’t just drown in it. And it’s what I should’ve been doing. It was a righteous endeavor. Then I was wounded. Blinded. Stricken helpless. It gave me a lot of time to think on all of this mess.” He motioned to the Captain’s belongings lying around their feet. “Too much time. Then I met you, your family, I came home, talked with Laura, healed, had my family around me. All the while sitting around. It gives a man rise to appreciating what he has… well he should. It gives him over to wanting to make something of himself, wanting to live the good life in this good country that he fought to save.”
“And ghosts and love letters and…and,” Lauryn dropped her eyes, overwhelmed for a moment. Overwhelmed that she even dreamed of being able to fulfill his needs somehow. A man like this, so strong, so haunted, so wounded and yet so ambitious. “…And other things seem rather trivial after what you’ve been through,” Lauryn offered.
“No!” he exclaimed, glaring at her. “That’s just it. Family, friends, work…that’s exactly what I fought for.” Angrily, he tossed the letters and ledger into a heap at his feet. “But this, this….it has taken us so long to get anywhere! Don’t you understand?” he asked, taking her shoulders in his hands and searching her eyes with his. “I need to work out in the sun, feel the sweat dripping down my face. I need to take my wife to bed and…” It was Lauryn’s astonished gasp that interrupted him. Her eyes wide with surprise at the forthrightness of his speech. But he paused only for a moment. “What? Do you want me to act like I don’t think about all this, Lauryn? Do you think that I don’t want babies to bounce on my knee and a wife to…”
Again, Lauryn gasped and clamped her hand over his mouth quickly. “Don’t say it,” she whispered.
“Don’t say what?” he growled, once he’d pushed her hand from his mouth. “Do you think it’s never been said? How do you think you got here? How do you think I got here? Don’t you think your perfect Captain and the lovely Lauralynn…” Again, Lauryn placed her hand over his mouth. And again he pushed her hand away. “And how do you suppose, sugar…that I’ll ever get a wife, have babies, work my own land if I can’t get this mess all straightened out and behind me? How would any woman understand my relationship with the beautiful ghost that visits me at night? I’m not sure that you even understand it! Hm? Answer me that.” He shook his head. “I can see it now…there we are, lying in our honeymoon bed and in walks my beloved Laura. ‘Oh, hello, Laura,’ I say. ‘Honey this is Laura…my ghost. I couldn’t help her out so she’ll be watching us every moment until…’”
“You and I both know that Laura would never intrude that way,” Lauryn scolded.
“You’re right. You’re right,” he admitted angrily. “But she’d be in my mind. And it’s almost the same thing.”
“You’re bein’ selfish,” Lauryn accused. “All you’re thinkin’ about is yourself and …”
“Hell, yes I’m selfish!” he shouted, taking her chin in his hand and forcing her to look up at them.
“Quit swearin’,” she told him.
“Quit pretending like it bothers you,” he growled. “And quit pretending like you’re not selfish, too. You want to be in my arms as much as I want you there.”
Lauryn was angry herself, now…for being so blinded by her own misery that she’d neglected the knowledge of his. She stooped and picked up the letters and ledger that Brant had angrily discarded.
“I’ll go back to Connemara,” she told him. “I’ll read through all the letters, alone. You’re right…you do need a rest from it all,” she encouraged him, looking up to find him sighing in defeat. “I’ll find Laura for you, Brant.” She reached up and touched his cheek with her hand, smiling before turning and leaving the attic.
She loved him! Loved him desperately! And she desperately wanted to be the wife he’d spoken of wanting. And if it took returning to Connemara alone, searching for Laura’s body until she was nearly dead…she would do it! To save Brant’s sanity and to have him for her own…she would do it.
“Don’t say a word, Laura,” Brant growled as Laura glided toward him, arms folded disapprovingly across her chest. “Don’t say a word.”
“I don’t have to,” came the softest of Laura’s fragrant whispers.
“You don’t understand!” he began to argue immediately, collapsing onto the pile of dusty quilts. “She lights this fire in m
e! I can’t get her out of my mind! I can’t concentrate on anything else.” Looking to his spiritual companion he added, “I can’t find you for thinking about her.”
“And that’s wrong?” Laura asked.
“Do you really think I’d be able to be happy knowing you were still miserable?” he asked. “Honestly, Laura? Do you?”
Lauralynn Masterson shook her head compassionately and caressed Brant’s cheek with her familiar and loving tenderness.
“No,” she admitted. “And I don’t think you would be happy findin’ me and losin’ her either, darlin’.” She smiled. “In fact, I think you’d be happier leavin’ me and keepin’ her.”
Brant chuckled slightly. “I won’t leave you.”
“Because you want her,” Laura finished for him.
“Exactly.”
Laura sat down on the quilts next to Brant. “Has it ever occurred to you, Brant…” she began. The strain at trying to hear her voice was almost painful to Brant. Yet he listened, intently. She was wise. He’d learned that long ago. It was wisdom to listen to her. “Has it ever occurred to you that, this ‘mess’ as you put it…is as much about your destiny as it is mine?”
Brant bit his lip in frustration and nodded. “Yes. But I try not to think about it.”
“Why ever not, silly boy?” Laura asked.
“First I’ll find you,” he told her. “Then I’ll find me.”
“It’s not meant to be that way, Brant. Findin’ me…is findin’ you.”
“Sometimes you talk in riddles. Do you know that?” He shook his head, angry with himself for losing his temper and letting it go at Lauryn.
“Yes,” Laura giggled. “I do know it.”
“And where is that teacup you use to carry around?” Brant asked.
Laura began to fade. “I don’t know where the cup went. One day…it just wasn’t with me anymore.”
“But what…why did you have it?” Brant asked.
Laura shrugged, becoming even more transparent. “I don’t remember. But it comforted me…until you were old enough to.” And she was gone.
The Fragrance of Her Name Page 32
