The Oak Leaves

by Maureen Lang

  But one thing was certain: even a prosperous inheritance wouldn’t outshine the shadow of a curse.

  All County Wicklow knew about the curse. Two years before, the son of a landholder from County Cork had traveled through their isolated glen, and learning of the unmarried daughter who would receive an inheritance, he’d come to inquire about Cosima’s hand.

  But a single night had been enough to warn the young man away. He’d left before the sun rose.

  It might have amused Cosima to think fear of a curse was enough to overcome greed. But because that so-called curse was upon her, she found no humor in it at all.

  Perhaps, if the lad had come this spring instead, he might have stayed longer. But two years ago her uncle had been alive, whom everyone called Willie rather than William because he’d always been like a young boy. Simple.

  And Percy had still been with them too. Percy was the firstborn of Cosima’s family, her older brother. Although Cosima hadn’t come along until a couple of years after Percy, she’d guessed the questions that had filled her parents’ minds during the time leading up to Percy’s arrival.

  Would he be like her Aunt Rowena’s boy, enfeebled? Or like his uncle, unquiet of mind? Willie was loud and coarse, his language little more than the mimic of those around him. Until his sudden death at the age of forty-five, he’d been like a child—comprehending little, curious but dangerously so when it came to things like fire or fragile glassware. He seemed to crave packing his mouth with food until he gagged. It was often hard to sit at the table with Willie.

  Cosima was told her brother Percy had appeared to be free of the curse for the first few years of his life. Though a pliant baby who learned to walk a little late, he slowly acquired language that went beyond that of his uncle Willie.

  No, Percy was not like Willie. Nor, though, was he like other boys from other families. Cosima learned that her mother had tried to deny it for years, even through her pregnancy with Cosima herself, anticipating the birth of another child to celebrate. But somewhere during the course of the years, everyone around her, even Cosima’s father, had been forced to change Mama’s mind. Percy might not be as slow-witted as Willie, but he was slow nonetheless.

  Decla, the servant closest to Mama, told Cosima that Mama had forbidden her husband his marital rights for years after that for fear of having any more children. But then, for reasons even Decla never knew or would not share with Cosima, Mary Escott had become pregnant again. This pregnancy was far different from Mama’s delusional years when children brought her only happiness and hope. No, the months while they waited for Roy were laden with worry, murmurs of the curse rumbling throughout the town among landholders and tenants alike.

  At last Roy was born, and any shred of hope Cosima’s parents might have clung to all but evaporated upon first sight. Too soon to tell, Cosima’s father had said. But Mama knew. She saw Roy’s head, a little larger than those of the babies in the village, and the ears, so prominent on each side. So like Percy and Willie. Worst of all, when she tried to suckle him, she knew the truth. The roof of his mouth was just like Percy’s, so high he had to work twice as hard to latch onto his mother’s breast. The pain with each feeding reminded her all too clearly that Roy—soon to be called Royboy—would be like Percy . . . or worse, like Willie.

  Two generations of males cursed under the Kennesey blood.

  Mama and Cosima were not the only ones to feel the bane. Last year, Mama’s sister Rowena had come to visit. How long it had been since the sisters had seen one another! But there was little joy in the reunion, because Rowena had brought two of her own children along, one a strapping young man and the other barely eight. Half-wits, both.

  There had been other children in between—a boy and a girl both healthy and bright—who had not made the journey. Two days into the visit Cosima and her mother realized the curse had been far worse for Rowena despite her healthy children. Rowena, never strong of will, had suffered the same gossip about curses as Mama. Perhaps she felt it more keenly since her husband was less tolerant than Cosima’s father. Rowena’s husband had sent her and the afflicted boys from the home, keeping the healthy children but refusing to have anything to do with a woman so obviously cursed.

  Rowena had little choice. It was either enter an asylum with her sons or die on the street. Instead, she came to her sister.

  But Rowena had no intention of burdening anyone with herself and the only children her husband allowed her. No, she had a plan that was, in retrospect, obviously meant to help and not hurt as it inevitably did.

  On a sunny spring morning nearly a year ago, much like earlier when Cosima had sat beneath the shade tree with Royboy, Rowena took her boys and Mama’s, along with their brother Willie—indeed, all afflicted in the family—to the cottage that sat deep in the forest. It was an old hunting cabin built over a hundred years earlier by peasants serving the local lord, and now it belonged to Cosima’s father through marriage to Mama.

  There, Rowena shuttered all the windows, closed off the fireplace, locked the doors. And then, quite deliberately, in what Cosima had since guessed was her aunt’s mind-set of martyr and savior, she set fire to the single-room cottage.

  Somehow, though, Royboy had slipped away without Rowena’s notice. One of the shuttered windows was found open, and when Royboy returned to the manor smelling of smoke, Cosima had begged him to tell her where he’d come from.

  But he didn’t have to say, even had he been able. Smoke rising from the forest soon revealed the source. Along with her parents and many of their servants, Cosima had raced to the gruesome discovery.

  Rowena had tried to end the curse in the only way she could imagine.

  Cosima rarely thought of that day without tears stinging her eyes. Aunt Rowena hadn’t ended it, though. Rather, she’d enhanced it. Prior to that, those who called her family cursed had said it ran only in the males. But after that they began to suspect the women as well.

  And this was the family Sir Reginald Hale wished to join?

  3

  Talie nearly dropped the journal, and a few pages slipped from the delicate spine. She scooped them back into place with trembling hands, her breath coming in short spasms.

  This was her call back? She’d expected a family so enamored of education and history that despite poverty they’d managed to leave a family legacy. Rather than a noble, resilient ancestral line that survived the ravages of a famine, the truth involved a murder-suicide and half-wits somehow related to her. This wasn’t the kind of call back her father would have wanted for her.

  She shook her head, pushing away the journal as if the pages themselves were an offense. It couldn’t be true.

  Glancing down, she noticed the words on the cover sheet again. This is my legacy to you. I assure you each word is true.

  Legacy. What kind of legacy? No wonder Dad had never pulled out this journal to share with the rest of the family. Some skeletons were better left in the closet.

  Part of her wanted to run upstairs and wake Luke, share with him the awful words written by her great-great-great-grandmother’s own hand. Adrenaline shot to Talie’s limbs as if prepared to carry her, but instead she forced herself to be still. The energy turned hot from lack of use, tingling in her fingers and toes.

  She placed the fragile journal back into the box, stuffing it down to the bottom, beneath her father’s schoolwork, beneath all the family letters. The only item she hesitated to return was the Bible.

  Talie stared at it. Did she really want to work on a family tree now? She knew Luke would make a masterpiece of whatever information she gave him, and the final product could be displayed with pride. Give him a project and he was like her when it came to scrapbooking. Perfectionist tendencies ran in both of them.

  But to display something like this . . . including the dates of a murder-suicide for all to see?

  Instead of placing it with the other things, she set the Bible aside on the kitchen table. Maybe she would get to the heritage record. M
aybe.

  She took the box upstairs, not to her own bedroom but to the guest room, a place she rarely visited except with an occasional dust cloth. She’d had enough family history for a while.

  * * *

  “So there I was, sitting at the top of the stairs crying a river because my husband was going back to work and leaving me alone with the baby.” Jennifer Dunlap, Talie’s neighbor, stirred the remnants of her tea and laughed. “I was sure I couldn’t handle taking care of Alison and the laundry, the dishes, the house, dinner. . . . As you can see, I can’t do it all if I want to take care of the baby right.”

  She directed everyone’s vision to the dishes in the sink and the basket of laundry nearby. The other women joined the laughter while most, including Talie, admitted to their own work back home.

  Talie and the other moms had spent the better part of the morning comparing husbands, in-laws, recipes, and the vacations they no longer took. Jennifer had suggested bringing a favorite book to exchange next week. All in all, it had been a mostly pleasant morning.

  Talie glanced again at the babies on the floor in the connecting family room. Ben sat off to the side, occasionally watching the others play with the toys. He never played with toys the way they were doing. She thought he was just too young.

  One of the neighbors stood, mentioning she had to leave.

  Finished with her own tea, Talie stood along with Lindy. Each went to her child.

  “I guess it’s true girls develop faster than boys,” Lindy said as she picked up her son, Mitchell. “Look, they’re crawling already! My little guy only scoots wherever he wants to go.”

  Sure enough, the three girls on the carpet were getting along on hands and knees—racing, as if on cue, toward the same goal: a brightly colored overstuffed pillow shaped like a pony.

  Jennifer came up behind them. “Alison started crawling early, but I’ve heard some babies go straight to walking.”

  Talie said nothing, keeping her eyes on Ben. If anyone noticed the uneasiness surging within her, Talie didn’t want to acknowledge it. She didn’t want to count how many ways Ben was different from the others but couldn’t seem to stop herself. While Ben certainly compared favorably in size and had the most hair, his posture wasn’t like the others’. He sat with a definite curve in his back, not strong and stiff like the others. He seemed . . . floppy somehow, as if his muscles didn’t work the same way. And yet Talie knew he was strong. He could grip her finger tightly and certainly had the kick of a professional football player in the making.

  “Wave bye-bye, Alison.” Jennifer Dunlap held her eight-month-old in her arms.

  Talie carried Ben to the front door. Her house was so close that she hadn’t bothered to bring the stroller. She stepped outside to the sunny day. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Alison’s little hand waving much the same way her mother’s did. Talie waved back.

  She held Ben snug, his arms and head resting contentedly against her. “Lindy’s right about boys and girls, I guess. But you’ll catch up, won’t you? Sure you will.”

  She turned at her driveway, glancing at Jennifer’s house again. She couldn’t ignore something heavy circling her heart, something that hadn’t been there before playgroup. There was Mitchell in Lindy’s arms, waving bye-bye much the same as Alison had.

  Mitchell and Ben might both be behind in the crawling department, but at least Mitchell could wave.

  Maybe Talie was doing too much for Ben. He’d never once expressed the ability or the interest in feeding himself the way the others had this morning. In the past if she offered a piece of bread or soft banana, he would put his mouth around it but not bite down. It was as if he didn’t have the strength or knowledge of what to do, even with something as basic as taking a bite.

  Back in her own kitchen, Talie gave Ben the yogurt snack she’d withheld in front of the others. She put the spoon in the cup and offered it to Ben in his high chair.

  He looked around, barely noticing what she’d set before him.

  Gently, Talie put her hand over his. He resisted her touch at first, so she took the spoon and fed him a bit, hoping to catch his interest once he realized it was his favorite flavor.

  Instead of grabbing the spoon he knocked it over, spilling some of the yogurt.

  Talie took up the spoon, not giving in to disappointment. “Guess you’re just not ready to feed yourself, little guy.”

  She was tempted to get a slice of bread and see if he would bite into that but told herself she was being silly. So what if he liked his mother to feed him? Ben was still a baby, and she loved doing things for him. Besides, last week’s sermon at church had been devoted to the frustration that inevitably came of comparisons. She shouldn’t be comparing Ben to others anyway.

  She jumped to the phone when it rang, grateful for the distraction. She didn’t have to look at the caller ID. It was Luke’s regular time to call.

  “Hey.” Luke didn’t bother to identify himself.

  “Hey back, boss man. How’s the new job?”

  “Great. I have my very own office—four walls and a door and everything. You’ll have to come and see.”

  “Love to. How are the people?”

  “My old boss is now a peer, and my new boss is hardly ever around. Couldn’t be better. And everybody I used to work with is still here, just down the row of cubicles. I’ll be interviewing next week to fill the two new spots.” It sounded like he took a drink of something, probably coffee. He was an addict. “How was playgroup?”

  “Nice. It’ll be good to get to know the women around here better.” Then she thought of something Luke had probably forgotten. “Remember to put tomorrow night on your calendar.”

  “Tomorrow night?”

  “Our promotion celebration. Just the two of us.”

  “Oh yeah.” His softened tone hinted he was sorry it had slipped his mind.

  “It’s all set up. Dana agreed to babysit, and she’s coming at six.”

  After Talie hung up the phone she finished feeding Ben, doing her best to ignore a string of unpleasant thoughts. They wouldn’t go away despite reminding herself she had Friday to look forward to—a real date night with Luke.

  She should forget this morning by going upstairs and retrieving that box she’d put so hastily away. Really, she’d only meant to keep that awful journal out of sight, not the rest. She could dig into the letters, look at the old postcards. Or she could stay down here and work on the family tree. The Bible was right there, still on the kitchen table.

  But when Ben went down for his nap a little while after lunch, it wasn’t any of those things that drew her.

  It was Cosima’s journal.

  4

  It was a bit unsettling to sit in the sunroom this morning with Mama and Father. Before today, we had not used the room in nearly a year! I had forgotten what a lovely prospect it has, overlooking the back of our property. At the base of the hill, one can see the forest, and beyond that, acres and acres of rich farmland. Rich, that is, before the blight.

  I began to think of our tenants, most of whom still live in their snug cottages through Father’s generosity. What will become of them when the Escott funds are depleted? Money must come from somewhere. Yet my thoughts were not permitted to linger long on such topics. . . .

  “I see no reason why you shouldn’t welcome this visit, Cosima,” said her father, Charles Escott.

  “Of course she welcomes it.” Her mother sipped tea, and her easy tone might have convinced Cosima that she was calm, except her teacup hit the saucer a bit too roughly, spilling some.

  Cosima said nothing to accept or deny the pronouncements. She looked around the room, at the furniture now revealed that had been covered for so many months, still colorful and inviting. The craftsmanship was fine, having been purchased with no thought to expense. Plush settees and polished, intricately carved side tables offered visitors what they wished: a place to sit in comfort and a table upon which to rest their tea.

  The entire main
floor had been reopened, a bit early since the last of winter’s chill might still be forthcoming. But with their visitor due to arrive at any time, it had been an easy decision for her mother to make.

  “Cosima,” her father said with cajoling lightness, “have you decided not to speak until this decision is made, one way or another?”

  Cosima tasted her own now-tepid tea, recoiling. She didn’t like the flavor of her mother’s favorite but had arrived at the table too late to state her preference.

  “Of course not,” she said at last. “I will speak, though my words make little difference, do they? The decision has been made . . . by Sir Reginald Hale.”

  Her father leaned forward and patted her hand. “Now there, child, it isn’t as if we’re selling you off to this man, you know. He could be a perfectly acceptable chap, one you’ll grow to love. In time.”

  “Don’t you know, darlin’, if you go into marriage with the wee expectation you obviously have, it can only get better. Respect won over the years leads inevitably to love.” Her mother took a bite from a biscuit and added, as if an afterthought, “Some love matches are prone to disappointment, because expectations are unreasonable. And that’s the truth of it, so I’ve been told.”

  Cosima studied her mother as if she’d spoken another language. Cosima wasn’t looking for love or avoiding it either. She was desperately trying to establish disinterest in the entire subject of marriage for one very good reason: she simply could not marry. Ever.

  How could her mother not understand? She acted as though Cosima were drowning in the folly of her own plan, insisting on throwing her a life preserver in the form of one Reginald Hale.

  Her father spoke again. “We’ve reviewed the man’s introduction, Cosima. He comes from a respected English merchant family. Not aristocracy, but he’s earned knighthood for benevolence work. It’s your mother’s wish, and my own, that you consider this proposal as perhaps the best that’s likely to come. What with . . . well, the perceptions of people around here—”