Heart of Glass

by Jill Marie Landis

  Eugenie nodded toward the tray. “There’s pork and rice just the way you like it. I’ll come back to collect the tray.” When she paused, folded her hands at her waist, and turned to him without smiling, he knew he was in for a lecture.

  “You know,” she began, “the roof leaks. Lots of glass is broken out of the windows. Rain water was rottin’ the sills. Miss Kate’s only having the men do what needs to be done most to keep the weather from bringing the place down.”

  She’s doing what I should have done.

  “Send her over here, Eugenie.”

  “Miss Kate?”

  “Of course Miss Kate. I certainly don’t want to chat with her nanny unless that would do more good.”

  “She’s busy right now. Maybe tomorrow she’ll—”

  “Now, Eugenie. Not tomorrow. Not even later today.” Colin took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. When he opened them again he spoke slowly and distinctly. “I want to see that woman right now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She was irked, but she held her silence as she walked to the door.

  “I mean it, Eugenie.”

  The door closed behind her but not before Colin heard her mumble, “I hear you.”

  Colin gritted his teeth, steeled himself against the pain, and managed to pull himself to a sitting position against a bank of pillows. He ran his palm over his beard, then shoved his hair back out of his eyes. A soup stain from last night’s dinner was on his shirtfront, but it was too late to ask Eugenie for a fresh shirt now. What do I care what Miss Keene thinks?

  Fine mess you are, Colin.

  He imagined his mother’s voice, heard the tinkle of her girlish laughter. In Marie Delany’s eyes he could do no wrong. If she were to have seen him like this before the war she would have rolled her eyes and ordered one of the house maids to fill a tub full of lavender-scented water and bring him clean clothes.

  As he waited for Kate to appear, lethargy mingled with traces of his last dose of laudanum and lulled him into a doze. He was awakened by a knock and discovered the sun was much lower. Kate Keene had taken her sweet time in answering his summons.

  Another quick, impatient knock followed the first before Colin hollered, “Come in.”

  Kate appeared with a rosy blush on her cheeks. Her hair was wrapped in a loose knot atop her head. She wore a pale-blue gown covered by an overly large apron.

  Styles had changed since before the war, so much so that even a man could notice. Back then women wore hooped cages beneath their skirts that belled out to completely hide the female form from the waist down. Seeing Kate’s shapely figure affirmed that Colin certainly didn’t miss those contraptions.

  The pockets of her apron bulged with what appeared to be papers and cards. Before he could utter a word, she went back outside and then came back in toting a bucket, rags, and a mop.

  “Why are you in that getup?” he demanded.

  “Getup?”

  “You look like a servant.” He pinned her with his gaze, letting his eyes roam over her from head to toe, and was pleased when she blushed.

  “I’ve been cleaning.” Kate set down the bucket. “Eugenie said you wanted to see me.”

  He glanced at the bucket before he met her gaze again.

  “She told me repairs are underway and that they’re your doing.”

  Instead of answering, Kate walked over to the drop-leaf table and ran her finger over it. She stared at the dust on her fingertip, brushed it off, and shrugged.

  “It’s the least I can do.”

  “I don’t want your help. I thought I made that clear.”

  “It’s not for you, Colin. My childhood would have been a very lonely time if not for Amelie and your parents. I’m doing this as a way of showing my gratitude for their many kindnesses.” Her voice was soft and melodic with a hint of an accent atop the slow languid cadence of Louisiana.

  “Well, they aren’t here and I have no money. Your efforts are wasted.”

  “The repairs are very limited. You have no need to repay me. The South may be in ruins, but thanks to my father, I am not.”

  “How nice for you, but I don’t need or want your charity.” He paused, watching her wipe off the tabletop with a floppy rag. “What are you doing?”

  “Dusting.”

  “Well, stop it.”

  “This place is a pigsty.”

  “I have expressly told Eugenie to leave it alone, that’s why.”

  “I’m not faulting her.” She reached up and wiped the dusty picture frame around a badly executed watercolor. “Amelie painted this one. Do you recall?”

  He didn’t recall, though lately he’d spent hours staring across the room at the painting, wondering who had wasted his or her time.

  “She was never very good at watercolors,” Kate said. “But she tried.” Suddenly she turned, the dusting momentarily suspended. “It would do well for you to take some pride in this place, not to mention yourself, Colin. Amelie could return anytime, and I, for one, certainly pray she will. Do you want her to see you like this?”

  “Did you suffer some kind of head injury, Kate? A fall maybe?”

  “No. Nor am I insane. Why wouldn’t Amelie come to visit you? When she does, things should be in order. She would expect that.”

  She turned away and started dusting a cane chair. After she finished the cane bottom, she tilted the chair and wiped off the legs and rungs beneath the seat. When Colin found himself admiring her backside beneath the fall of ruffles down her skirt, he sighed and forced himself to concentrate on the misshapen cluster of roses in Amelie’s watercolor.

  “After what she’s done, do you think I’m going to welcome her home with open arms?”

  “I really don’t care. At least this place will be looking better when and if Amelie ever does come home.”

  He cursed under his breath and saw Kate wince before she started dusting the second chair.

  “You’ve been in the company of soldiers too long,” she said.

  “What do you know about where I’ve been?”

  She considered him for a moment. “I heard you were out west fighting Indians. Wearing Union blue.” She finished the chair and turned to him directly, the dust rag forgotten at her side.

  “Colin, there’s every chance that with a little faith and time, you’ll recover—”

  He turned to stare out the window.

  “It’s been months,” he said.

  “Locked inside all the time, I assume.” She picked up a chair and carried it over to the French doors facing the garden. She opened the doors wide and set the chair just outside on the small stone veranda.

  “You need sunlight, fresh air, and a change of view.” Suddenly she was beside the bed, touching his arm. “Let me help you up.”

  “Get your hands off me!” She startled him so much his demand came out far harsher than he intended. Kate ducked her head and quickly stepped back.

  Does she think I’ve sunk that far? To think that I would hit her?

  “You are very irritating, Miss Keene, but I would never strike a woman.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to holler like that.” She blinked, her round eyes wide behind her spectacles. “Would you like me to help you outside?” She reached for his cane.

  He didn’t want her help, and he wasn’t about to go sit outside where he’d be seen. The truth was that he couldn’t bear to see his mother’s garden in ruins, her precious roses choked by weeds. Suddenly he heard Marie’s voice again.

  Look, Colin. A box from France! My new tea roses have finally arrived. Yellow, I think. Why, it’s been so long I can’t even recall what I ordered.

  He had enough unwanted memories before Kate Keene had showed up. Now she’d awakened even more.

  “I thought I made it clear I don’t want your help. Stop cleaning. And while you are at it, leave the main house alone too.”

  “I wish you would go see the progress Simon and the others are making. Did you know Simon’s grand
father built the original house? Your mother’s relations paid him a fair price for his work too.”

  “Do Simon and the others know they won’t be getting paid?”

  She hesitated. Frown lines marred her forehead just above the bridge of her glasses. She turned so she didn’t have to face him and batted the dust rag along a chair rail.

  “I’ve paid them.” Before he could respond she added, “You can pay me when you are on your feet again.”

  Kate glanced at his injured ankle. She was close enough to see the angry, ruined skin and deep scars extending below the hem of his pant leg.

  “You had no right to butt in here, Miss Keene. None at all.”

  Their eyes met briefly before she turned away. She picked up the mop and shoved it into the bucket. She sloshed soapy water onto the floor. It dribbled over the toes of her leather shoes.

  “I won’t be beholden to you or anyone,” he added. “I’ll give the place away first.”

  “Who’s going to want this tumbled-down mess?”

  “You, obviously.”

  “It’s yours and Amelie’s. As long as you have Belle Fleuve, you have a home and you have land.”

  “Why don’t you have a home of your own? Why aren’t you browbeating some hapless husband, drawing up house plans and bestowing your fortune on him instead of me? Would no one have you? Is that it? Too much of an intellect are you, Miss Keene? Did you spend too many hours hunched over plans for Belle Fleuve to find yourself a husband and have a proper life?”

  Kate was tempted to fling the bucket of soapy water on him, but she put her back into mopping Colin’s muddy floor instead. He probably wouldn’t believe her if she told him she’d turned down half a dozen proposals.

  She dunked the dirty mop into the bucket, yanked it out, and twisted the wet, flopping ends before she slapped it against the floor again.

  He knew nothing, nothing about the offers she’d refused from fine, decent men who would have made wonderful husbands. Men in Boston and Ireland, some from right here in Louisiana. Men who were polite and good humored — nothing like him. A few she denied because they’d seemed more interested in her inheritance than in what she had to offer as a wife. The rest she’d turned down because none had measured up to her ideal. None of them held a candle to the young man who had captured her heart so long ago.

  She sneaked a glance in Colin’s direction, then let her gaze linger while he stared out the open French doors. She’d all but given up hope of ever seeing him again until the day Myra returned from the market and told her rumors were rampant about the madman living at the Delany plantation. Kate had ignored the gossip and danced a little jig.

  Now surly and unkempt, he was straining her patience. She could barely tolerate the way he was treating her. It was hard to imagine what she’d ever seen in him. Myra had tried to convince Kate that the torch she was carrying for Colin was merely childhood infatuation. The man she thought she loved was not the brooding man who had locked himself away from the world. There was certainly nothing admirable about Colin’s anger or his self-pity.

  What did she know of him or what he’d become? Was she taking on too much?

  Wielding the mop, Kate vowed right then that once he was on his feet again, and once the house was cleaned and repaired, her work here would be done.

  Ignoring him for the time being, she finished mopping the floor, then picked up his untouched luncheon tray. Leaving the front door wide open behind her, she marched the tray back to the house. When she returned not more than three minutes later, he remained silent, but she felt his dark eyes boring into her. She toted the bucket outside, tossed the dirty water, and then went back for her rags and mop. She was about to leave when she remembered the Delany photographs tucked in her right pocket.

  When she walked over to Colin’s bedside, he looked mad enough to spit nails. She ignored his scowl.

  “I don’t remember you having any gumption before. I don’t think I ever even heard you squeak around here,” he growled.

  “Maybe you weren’t listening. I earned my gumption standing up to people who constantly told me no. People who insisted I couldn’t be what I wanted to be or learn what I wanted to learn because I was a woman. I learned to fight for what I wanted.”

  She prayed he would soon muster enough courage of will to fight his pain, to believe in himself and this place again.

  “I found these in the attic.” She slipped the images out of her pocket. Though she felt like tossing them on the bed, she set them down gently.

  “If you’re waiting for me to thank you, you’re wasting your time.” He didn’t even glance at the pictures lying within reach, though he balled his fingers into a fist as if to keep from reaching for them.

  It suddenly dawned on her that his anger had a purpose — it kept everyone at bay. He used it not only to isolate himself, but to hide his pain.

  Kate softened the moment the realization hit her.

  “Would you like me to trim your hair?” The words had come out too soft, almost as if she were coaxing a temperamental child. She desperately needed to find out if there was something, anything, left of the Colin she once knew. Perhaps after a haircut and shave …

  “What I would like is for you to disappear.”

  “I’m only trying to help, but I’m beginning to think you don’t deserve it.” Suddenly it didn’t matter why he was so angry and morose. Her Irish temper was already strained to the limit. “You have a dark heart, Colin. You didn’t always.”

  She looked at the empty chair waiting beyond the French doors. She so wanted to see him in the dappled sunlight filtering down through the oaks. She started to walk away.

  “What would you know of me or my heart?” His softer tone stopped her. “You were a child when you last saw me. I was too for that matter.”

  She walked over to the open doors and stared outside. The garden was empty. The intense sunshine had driven Myra inside.

  “I’d rather have a dark heart than one like yours,” he said.

  She turned to him. “What do you mean?”

  “You have a heart of glass. That’s very dangerous, you know.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It is too fragile, too full of a disgusting overabundance of optimism and hope.”

  “What’s wrong with optimism? What’s wrong with hope?” His words hurt more than anything else he’d said or done. Rapidly blinking away tears, Kate was bound and determined not to let him see how easily he could wound her.

  “When it finally shatters and that light is gone, Kate, you won’t be able to survive it.”

  “I don’t believe that for a minute. That hope is what sustains me through good times and bad.” She took a step closer to the bed and stopped when his frown deepened. “I’d happily share it to see you through this. If only—”

  “Are you always like this? Are you real?”

  “I hope so.”

  “I would think all that hope is exhausting.”

  She took a deep breath, shook her head, and forced a smile. “No more exhausting than all of your self-pity.”

  FOUR

  I hate to see you go, Miss Kate.”

  Kate crossed the open foyer at the bottom of the stairs in the main house and took hold of Eugenie’s hands. The woman’s eyes widened at Kate’s gesture.

  “Given how much Colin wants me gone, I’ve been lucky to have stayed two weeks, but I dare not defy him any longer.”

  Kate surveyed the changes: The stairs to the second floor were no longer dangerous. Her mother’s unwanted furniture was scattered throughout the formal rooms downstairs. Decent beds and bedding now filled the rooms upstairs, and she had left an ample supply of linens, lamps, and rugs. The walls were bare, but at least they’d been stripped of shredded wall coverings.

  Kate nodded, satisfied with what she’d done in a month. Now it was time to return to the city and reestablish herself there. She’d done enough to stave off the inevitable at Belle Fleuve for a year
or two. All she could do now was pray that Amelie would return before then and convince Colin to come to his senses.

  “I’ve done all I can,” she said.

  Just then Simon came downstairs toting Myra’s trunk and a traveling case.

  “Where will you go now, Miss Kate?”

  “Back to our suite at the St. Charles. I may even look for a permanent residence.” She knew some lovely homes could be had for a song in the Garden District, but none that compared to Belle Fleuve. “I couldn’t have found a better carpenter anywhere, Simon. Please thank your crew for me, will you?”

  “‘Course, Miss Kate.” He set down the trunk, reached into the pocket of his baggy homespun trousers, pulled out a miniature wooden carving that fit in the palm of his hand, and handed it to her.

  “Why, it’s Belle Fleuve.” Kate turned the piece over and over, studying the intricate carving and detail. The columns were all there. So too were the gallery railings. It was a small masterpiece. She smiled at Simon through tears.

  “I’m honored, Simon. I’ll treasure this always.”

  “I know how you hold this place in your heart, Miss Kate. Now you can hold it in your hand. I’m hopin’ it’ll bring you back.”

  “I sure wish things would have worked out different,” Eugenie said, as Myra made her appearance on the stairs.

  Once her companion was beside her, Kate handed Myra the carving for safekeeping and thanked the couple again. The carriage she’d hired was due at any moment. Eugenie opened the front door, and as Kate walked out she saw a wagon coming up the long drive. Not exactly the carriage she expected.

  “You didn’t order more supplies, did you?” Simon stepped up beside her as the four of them watched the approaching vehicle. A driver in overalls and a wide-brimmed straw hat was guiding the team of horses.

  “Everything’s been delivered,” she said.

  The wagon, loaded with burlap sacks labeled “Rice,” made its way to the circular portion of the drive that fronted the main house. The driver pulled back on the reins and set the brake, then looked over his shoulder into the bed of the wagon.