Shadows of the Heart

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Trish,” he murmured. He smiled. “A bit impudent sounding. Yes, that suits you.”

  “Do you go by Robert?” she asked. “Or Bob?”

  “Robert,” he said absentmindedly. “Once upon a time… a long, long time ago, your mother used to call me Robbie. But—” He broke off, swallowing convulsively. “It would please me very much if just once I could hear you call me Father. Or maybe… maybe even Dad.”

  Trish stared at him, aghast. Everything had seemed so normal about him up to now, just a pleasant, reminiscing sort of conversation between two people sipping iced tea together on a sunny day. But was that normalcy all just a facade? What confused thoughts could possibly make him want her to call him Father? But there was such a pleading, almost desperate look on his gaunt face that she didn’t want to argue. She moved as unobtrusively as possible toward the gate.

  “Very well, F-Father,” she managed to say. She held the armload of flowers between them almost like a shield.

  He smiled ruefully. “I’ve frightened you again, haven’t I? I’m sorry. I know I must sound mad to you. I shouldn’t have said anything. I promised I never would.”

  Once again he was just an old and tired man automatically flexing his hands to keep them from becoming completely bent and stiff and useless. “I’m sorry,” he repeated gently.

  “No, please, I don’t understand.” Trish took a step toward him. The sunny day suddenly seemed strange and unreal around her, the ground insubstantial beneath her as she wavered on the edge of a never even suspected discovery. “Who did you promise? What did you promise?”

  “Your mother,” he said simply. “That I would never tell anyone I was your real father.”

  The blooms dropped nervelessly from Trish’s arms. She sank weakly into the wooden chair, stunned by the revelation and yet never for a moment doubting it. The quiet, simple statement had the ring of utter truth. She moistened dry lips. “I—I don’t understand.”

  “During the worst of the hot, humid season on the banana plantation my wife would go into San Jose for a few weeks each year. One year she met Roger Bellingham. They fell in love. She came back to the plantation and told me.” He said it all matter-of-factly, without emotion, then sighed. “I made a terrible scene. I threatened, pleaded, everything. Finally she said she would forget Bellingham and stay. We made up, after a fashion, but she was miserably unhappy. Then, a couple of months later, Bellingham showed up at the plantation, saying he had come to take her away. This time Carole Ann said she was going, that I could not stop her, and she was taking our daughter, Edith, with her.”

  He paused, and took a sip from the glass that now held only melted ice water. Trish could see his hand trembling on the glass.

  “By then I knew I had lost my… my wife. But I vowed she would never have Edith. And by then I had a weapon to use against her, because she was pregnant again. With you.”

  Trish caught her breath, and found herself gripping the table so tightly her hand felt numb.

  “Bellingham didn’t know. Looking back, I doubt now that it would have made any difference to him if he had known. But at the time I thought it would matter and Carole Ann was desperately afraid it would affect his feelings for her. I warned her that if she took Edith away, I would make sure Bellingham knew the truth. But if she would leave Edith, she could go and good riddance. She could try to deceive Bellingham any way she wanted. We struck a sort of bargain: If she would leave Edith with me and never interfere with her in any way, I would do the same with the unborn child she was carrying and never reveal I was the real father.” He stopped, his face troubled. “And now I have broken that vow.”

  Trish reached over and squeezed his bony hand reassuringly. “I think after all these years that my mother would perhaps not object too much. And I… I am very grateful that I know the truth.”

  Roger Bellingham already knew the truth, she added to herself. Perhaps Carole Ann had concealed the fact of her pregnancy for a short while, until there was time to let him think the coming child was his. Perhaps she even carried the deception so far as to say the baby arrived abnormally early. But Roger Bellingham, though he might have pretended to accept the deception, knew who the baby’s real father was. Trish had no doubt about that.

  The child. The baby. Trish realized she was thinking as if this had happened to someone else. This child was she! And it explained so many things.

  It explained why she had been raised by her grandparents, staying with them even when her parents were not traveling, something that had puzzled and sometimes even hurt her. It explained why Roger Bellingham, although always treating Trish with kindness and generosity, had never been very close or affectionate to her. It explained too, Trish thought suddenly, her mother’s seeming indifference to Edith all these years. That had been a part of the bargain.

  “Does Edith know?” Trish asked suddenly.

  Robert Hepler shook his head. “I’ve kept it a secret all this time. Only my lawyer knows. I’ve wanted to tell Edith, but…” He lifted his hands helplessly.

  “Would you mind very much if I told her?” Trish asked. “I think it would make her feel better to know why our mother has always been so… indifferent to her.”

  Robert Hepler looked troubled again. “I should not have told you. I never intended to. Your mother will never forgive me if she finds out. But seeing you, seeing the fear in your eyes when you looked at me…”

  “I’m glad you told me,” Trish said sincerely. She couldn’t explain all the strange feelings that were suddenly coursing through her. “I’m just glad. And I think Edith would be glad to know too.”

  Robert Hepler finally nodded and Trish sat there trying to take it all in. It didn’t make her feel any different toward the man she had always thought of as her father, Roger Bellingham, she realized slowly. In fact she felt she could somehow better accept him for what he was, a man who had accepted another man’s child and done the best he could for her. Too often she had thought his lack of demonstrativeness toward her had resulted from a lack in her, that if only she were smarter or prettier or more talented he would have been more loving. Somehow it was easier knowing, even at this late date, that his feelings had nothing to do with her personal attributes. Edith, she thought suddenly, might feel that way too. Had she perhaps felt that if she were prettier or smarter that her mother would have loved her enough to stay?

  Oh, the burdens and guilts we take on ourselves as children, Trish thought ruefully. She suddenly realized Robert Hepler was looking at her anxiously. It was difficult to think of him as her father, but not impossible. Impulsively she reached over and hugged him, and a smile of pure pleasure lit his gaunt face.

  Suddenly there were so many things she wanted to ask him. Half of her very being was a complete unknown to her. But she could see that telling her all this, almost reliving it, had tired and weakened his already frail body.

  “We’ll talk again,” she promised. “But now I think you should get some rest.”

  He nodded and she helped him lie down on a padded lounge chair. He touched her hand in a small gesture of gratitude.

  “You’ll tell Edith?”

  She nodded and patted his arm reassuringly. “There is no need for anyone else to know, if you think it would be better that way.” She paused, remembering something, though she never knew later just why she chose to ask the question. “But you mentioned that someone else did know? A lawyer?”

  “Yes. Hans Schwarz. He’s handled the plantation legal matters for years.”

  Hans Schwarz. She might not have remembered the name if it had not seemed so incongruous among the mostly Spanish-sounding names she had encountered in this country. Now it flashed across her mind like a brilliant neon sign. Hans Schwarz—the very same lawyer Marc had gone to see in San Jose.

  It didn’t necessarily mean anything, she told herself. It was probably logical that the same lawyer took care of business matters for both cafetales, since they were, though perhaps unwillingly, partners
of a sort. And yet… Something nibbled at the edge of her mind, something not quite formed into a thought, and yet somehow already filling her with a vague apprehension. She realized Robert Hepler was speaking to her again.

  “… could have dinner together some evening, if you don’t mind my rather clumsy tendency to spill and drop things.”

  “We’ll do that,” Trish said quickly, reassuringly. “You get some rest now.”

  “Trish?”

  “Yes?”

  “I—I’m very proud of you. It makes me very happy to have both my daughters here.”

  Trish gave him another hug and gathered up the blooms she had dropped. She waved and smiled as she went out the gate. But once on the other side, the thought that had nibbled at the edge of her mind exploded into a full-blown realization.

  Marc knew! Somehow through his association with the same lawyer Robert Hepler used, Marc had managed to find out she was really the daughter of Edith’s father. When had he found out? Had he known all along? Or was it a recent discovery, perhaps made the very day he and Trish had gone to San Jose? What did it all mean?

  Trish’s thoughts churned chaotically. If Marc knew she was a true daughter of the owner of the cafetal he coveted, did he also think she possessed some claim to the property just as Edith did? Did he think that even if he got rid of Edith, Trish might still stand in his way? She couldn’t, of course. Her birth certificate showed Roger Bellingham as her father. She could never make any valid legal claim to the property. But Marcantonio de la Barca was a determined and thorough man. If he thought there was a chance, any chance at all, that Trish might stand in his way, he would be only too willing to get rid of her along with Edith.

  The car “accident” had offered the perfect opportunity to kill them both, she thought with a shudder. With both his daughters dead, sick and grieving Robert Hepler would be only too glad to get rid of the coffee plantation and sell it to Marc. How disappointed Marc must have been to hurry to the hospital the morning after the car wreck and find Trish there, whole and healthy, and Edith only injured. No wonder he had been so cold and aloof!

  Trish had already accepted the fact that Marc was ruthlessly willing to let her die as a sort of coincidental by-product of his getting rid of Edith, but now she had to face the fact that he might actually have deliberately planned her death also—planned it at the very moment he was kissing and caressing her at the fiesta!

  But he had offered her a way of escape, she thought with a sudden surge of hope. He had tried to get her to leave the fiesta with him. Or had he? Moment by moment her mind went back over the sweet pain of those minutes in the dark as she struggled to pinpoint each word he had spoken, each nuance of meaning.

  And then she had to stifle an almost hysterical laugh at her own naiveté. Marc had made some whispered comment about going to his car; she had interpreted this as a suggestion that she leave with him. But what was he really suggesting? A few moments of crude, meaningless passion in his car? And she had thought him so sophisticated, so charming. Was there ever anyone so blind as a woman in love? The full horror of his ruthlessness settled around her like an icy cloud; the realization that he could try to seduce her and then cold-bloodedly send her to her death. And she had no doubt but that if his expert kisses and caresses had succeeded, he would still have sent her to her death. He was willing to mix business and pleasure when convenient, but he never forgot that business, the business of possessing the cafetal, came first. There was, after all, always another willing female. And she had naively gone to him wanting to talk! How he must have laughed at her.

  Trish felt something sticky on her arms and glanced down, realizing in dismay that in her mental turmoil she had carelessly crushed and ruined the flamboyant red blooms. It seemed symbolic of the careless way Marc had been willing to destroy her. The red stain of the flowers might have been her own blood…

  She walked to the edge of the clearing and dropped the limp blooms into the tangled underbrush. It seemed a regrettable waste. A short time ago they had been glowing and alive on the shrubs; now they were dead and wasted. She looked at them with remorseful guilt, wondering wildly if Marc would feel even the faintest twinge of regret when he sent her to her death.

  Now she was becoming melodramatic and morbid, she told herself unsteadily. She had to get hold of herself, straighten out her thoughts and emotions. But too much had assaulted her mind this day—the startling revelation of her true heredity, and the fresh damnation of the man with whom she had recklessly, precipitously fallen in love.

  Chapter Ten

  Edith looked stunned when Trish finished telling everything their father had related to her. They were sitting in Edith’s bedroom, which looked out on the brilliant courtyard.

  “It makes me happy to know we’re really sisters,” Trish added. “I hope you’re pleased too.”

  “Oh, I am!” Edith agreed quickly, her gaze jerking back from the light dancing off the pool.

  “But there is one thing. Your father… our father… seemed worried that he had done something wrong in telling me because of that old promise he made to our mother. I tried to reassure him, but maybe if you could say something too?” Trish suggested.

  “Yes, I’ll do that.” Edith nodded.

  Trish considered warning her about the dangers to both of them from Marc, but Edith seemed so stunned by this first piece of information that Trish decided against saying anything more just then. Edith was absentmindedly massaging the fingers protruding from the cast on her left arm.

  “Will you tell Armando?” Trish asked.

  “I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so,” Edith said. She sounded distracted, more shocked than Trish had been by the revelation.

  Trish squeezed her arm. “Why don’t you lie down and take a nap before dinner? You look exhausted. You really shouldn’t be up and running around, you know.”

  Edith nodded. “Yes, I’ll do that.” She hesitated. “Did Father say anything more?”

  “About what?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Mother, us…”

  “Just that he wasn’t bitter against her anymore. I hope you can feel that way too,” Trish added impulsively. “It must have been very difficult for you all these years when she acted so indifferent toward you. But now you know the reason why.”

  “Yes,” Edith murmured. “Now I know.”

  “It wasn’t really by choice,” Trish added.

  “Wasn’t it?” Edith murmured, but she sounded more tired than bitter.

  Trish went to her own room then. She had to admit she was a little disappointed that Edith hadn’t seemed more excited about the news, but she reflected that the quiet reaction was typical of Edith’s reserved, unassuming character. By dinnertime Edith did seem more enthusiastic and approving, almost vivacious perhaps, Trish realized, because Edith had told Armando the news and he approved, and so that made everything all right.

  Armando, in fact, seemed quite delighted. He proposed a toast with the dinner wine, showered both Trish and Edith with extravagant compliments, insisted on taking a snapshot of them together, and generally turned the evening into a festive occasion of celebration. He made no mention of the dangers from Marc and Trish decided to ignore them for the moment too. The happy camaraderie among the three of them was too good to spoil this evening.

  The next morning, however, when Edith excused herself after breakfast to go see her father, Trish brought up the subject to Armando in low tones, ever mindful that whatever they said might find its way to Marc. She explained her new suspicion that Marc might mistakenly believe she had some claim on the cafetal and want to get rid of her as well as Edith. Armando was considering the matter thoughtfully when Edith unexpectedly rushed into the dining room.

  “Father is gone!” she cried.

  Armando looked up. “Gone? Gone where?” he asked, looking mildly puzzled. “Perhaps he’s taking a walk with the nurse.”

  Edith shook her head wildly. “No! He left a note. And the nurse is practicall
y in a stupor. He must have tricked her into taking some of his sleeping pills!”

  Armando took the note from Edith and spread it on the table. The writing was plain enough, but the message was rambling and disjointed. It went on about how he should never have revealed the truth to Trish, that he had made a sacred promise to her mother not to, that he could no longer live with this burden of guilt on his heart.

  “What does he mean?” Edith cried. “Why has he done this?”

  “He isn’t reasoning logically anymore,” Armando said grimly. “His mind has become completely unbalanced. We must find him before he does something terrible.”

  “But he seemed so normal yesterday,” Trish protested.

  “Is it normal to say you’re going to some ancestral place to die?” Armando asked, pointing to the last cryptic sentence.

  “What does it mean?” Edith repeated. “Where did he go?”

  “To the lava tubes!” Trish gasped. “He said something only yesterday about their being a possible burial site.”

  “We have no time to waste then,” Armando said grimly. “We have no idea when he left here. He could be hours ahead of us.”

  “But he couldn’t walk there, could he?” Trish asked. “It’s a long distance and he could barely get around yesterday.”

  Edith paused uncertainly and looked at Armando. He nodded.

  “That’s true. Perhaps we are in luck then. If we leave right now, perhaps we can catch him before he reaches the tunnels and carries out whatever he has in mind.”

  Armando issued crisp instructions about wearing sturdy shoes and taking jackets in case they had to search the tunnels. He was instructing a servant to bring flashlights when Trish hurried off to change her clothes. Only moments later the three of them were in the pickup, churning up the slope through the coffee trees.

  Beyond the cultivated area the road was no more than two rough ruts overgrown from disuse. Low branches drooped overhead and Trish automatically dodged as a branch slapped the windshield now and then. This was all her fault, she thought remorsefully. She should have turned and run the moment she saw Robert Hepler. Edith had been right in keeping them apart. She knew any contact with Trish would upset him. Edith might have been mistaken about the reason he would be disturbed, but the outcome was the same. Only worse, Trish thought unhappily, because even Edith had never suspected something like this might happen. What did the man intend to do? Had he taken a weapon? Or did he intend to crawl off into some hidden niche and wait for death?