When Swallows Fall

by Gloria Davidson Marlow

  “Are you okay, miss?” Dory asked from beside me. She held a dress of midnight blue taffeta in her hands, and I pursed my lips, trying to keep them from trembling as I nodded.

  “I’m fine.”

  She slipped the dress over my head and smoothed it down around my hips. “It’s a very nice dress.”

  “Not quite black.”

  “It’s close enough, I think.”

  She was right. It was very nearly black, the blue of it showing only in certain light, like a crow’s wing. I had bought it in New Orleans, thinking I could wear it when accompanying my father in his bereavement duties, and I’d worn it to his funeral four years ago. I’d thought of Desi when I bought it, remembering a crow she’d nursed back to health when we were twelve, but I never dreamed I would wear it to mourn her death a few years later.

  I quickly dashed away the threatening tears and took a deep breath as Dory stepped back and surveyed her handiwork.

  “You look beautiful, miss.”

  “I’m in mourning, Dory. My looks don’t matter.”

  “I think you are like your sister, Miss Garrett. Sadness makes you even prettier.”

  Startled by her words, I turned toward her. “Was she often sad?”

  I watched Dory war with herself, wanting to tell me more but afraid to overstep her bounds.

  I grasped her hands. “Please, Dory, tell me. What kind of life did my sister have here? Why was she sad? Who would have killed her?”

  The questions poured out of me, and poor Dory looked as if she would love to run away, but I clung to her hands.

  “Oh, miss, I really can’t say.” Her eyes darted to the doorway nervously.

  “Please,” I begged. “Please tell me what you know.”

  “That’s enough, Ophelia.”

  I spun around at the sound of Cade’s voice. He stood in the doorway, dressed for supper in a dark suit, his face a mask of cold fury.

  “I deserve answers, Cade. Desi was my sister, and I want to know what happened to her.”

  “Dory, excuse us, please,” he ground out, as he crossed the room toward me.

  “But, Mister Cade—”

  He cut off her protest with a slice of his hand in the air, pointing to the door, and she dashed from the room.

  “I’ve told you what happened to Desdemona. She was murdered, thrown over the side of the lighthouse to the rocks below.”

  I shuddered at the thought. “Yes, you told me that, but you never told me who could have done it. Or why.”

  My voice broke on the last word, and his face softened.

  “God knows you deserve the answers you’re looking for, but I won’t give them to you.”

  Mrs. Hartley appeared at the door, her anxious gaze relaxing when she caught sight of us.

  “Miss Garrett?” she panted, making me wonder if she had run up the stairs. Had she been afraid for me being here with Cade alone? Had Dory told her he was angry? Had she feared he would harm me?

  “Yes?” I answered, while Cade’s words danced in my head. He hadn’t said he couldn’t tell me why Desdemona was murdered. Only that he wouldn’t.

  “I was given instructions to escort you downstairs once you were ready.” Mrs. Hartley looked at Cade pointedly. “Right, sir?”

  “Of course,” he said with a slight incline of his head. He motioned toward the door. “After you, Ophelia.”

  With Cade trailing behind us, Mrs. Hartley led me to the parlor, where Cade’s family was already gathered. The room was eerily silent, currents of emotion tangible beneath the surface, and all eyes turned to me as I entered. I have no idea where I found the resolve to meet them stare for stare.

  Cade had been right about the lack of mourning attire I should expect. Eleanor had chosen to wear an orchid dress with deep purple trim at the sleeves and neckline, while Lorraine wore a bright emerald dinner dress with a diamond-studded brooch in the middle of her low-cut bodice.

  After a few moments of intense scrutiny, Eleanor hurried toward me, slipping her arm in mine and ushering me into the room.

  “You mustn’t mind our rudeness, Fee. It is just still so strange to see you, looking so much like Desdemona and yet so different.”

  “Different?” Lorraine snorted.

  “Of course,” Eleanor said, “The differences are quite obvious, aren’t they, Cade?”

  She turned to Cade, and he nodded. “Yes, quite.”

  I blushed as Lorraine circled me, studying me from every angle.

  “The only difference I see is that this one might have a little class. If Ophelia were the one who had died, I sincerely doubt Desdemona would have wasted a perfectly good chance to show off her wares by wearing a mourning dress.”

  Appalled by her assessment of my sister, I spun to face her but was stilled by Cade’s words.

  “Absolutely correct, Lorraine, although I’m surprised that class was the difference you noticed.”

  Lorraine laughed, placing a hand to her chest as if her amusement was more than she could contain. “Cade, you bad, bad boy. I suppose you thought I’d notice, as you obviously did, that her wares are quite extraordinary compared to her sister’s.”

  “Lorraine!” Eleanor trilled, the blush mottling her neck and cheeks testimony to her embarrassment at her sister-in-law’s reference to my somewhat ample bosom. I fought a losing battle to hide it beneath the modest dresses I favored, and my hand went there of its own accord, resting on the blue-black fabric that covered me completely.

  “I see now why it was so easy for you to comment on what you perceive as my sister’s lack of class, Lorraine,” I said coldly. “It must have been quite easy for you to recognize.”

  Lorraine pursed her lips until they turned white from the pressure. Her eyes sparked with anger and, for a moment, I expected her hand to meet my cheek. Instead, she smiled slowly and offered a little clap of her hands.

  “Bravo, Ophelia,” she applauded. “Well played.”

  “Dinner is served, sir,” Mrs. Hartley said from the doorway, and I breathed a sigh of relief as Cade took my arm and led me into the dining room. Calvin and Lorraine followed behind us, leaving Eleanor to bring up the rear alone.

  I wondered what the others thought of Cade’s solicitousness but then reminded myself that it was the appropriate thing for him to do. To the rest of the world, I was simply his sister-in-law, a houseguest come to mourn her sister’s death at his side. They had no idea we had once been in love.

  We were served a thick crab bisque, so flavorful a hum of appreciation nearly escaped me. Cade offered me a knowing smile as he spooned the soup into his own mouth, nearly causing me to choke. Could he possibly remember that just such a dish had been one of my favorites during our time in New Orleans?

  I knew my face turned pink at the thought, and when I looked toward Eleanor and saw her staring at me, it must have turned a brilliant red.

  “Cade,” she said, turning her attention to him. “I’m quite sure that you and Desdemona came home to Almenara immediately after your marriage. Yet you and Ophelia seem quite familiar with one another. Did you stop off to meet Desdemona’s family on your way home?”

  I expected him to say yes, even though it was a lie, but he shook his head.

  “No, I actually knew Fee before I met Desi. She was in New Orleans for a while before her sister arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Robertson introduced us.”

  “So were you there for the wedding?” Eleanor directed the question at me and I shook my head.

  “No, I’m afraid I missed the wedding. Our father was ill and I was called home to care for him.”

  “What of your sister? She wasn’t needed at home?”

  I saw the corner I had backed myself into. Speaking the truth, that my father refused to see his other daughter or forgive her for her transgressions, seemed disloyal and unfair to Desi. So I opened my mouth and, although it pained me to do so, spoke the lie that Desi and I had agreed upon when I left her behind in New Orleans.

  “No, only one of
us was needed at home. Desi was young and adventurous, with the future spread out before her, and I saw no reason for us both to return.”

  The truth was that Desdemona had been carrying on an affair with a married colleague of our father. When my father learned of it, he begged her to end the affair, but Desi refused. He had given her a ticket to join me and thrown her out of the house, hoping she would come to her senses and, if not repent of her sins, at least give up her lover. I always believed he intended for her to return home with me at the end of that summer, but when he had a stroke a week after her arrival in New Orleans, I returned alone. By that time, Desi was so ill and weak with worry over the whole sordid business, I feared for her health should she make the return trip so soon. We agreed that we would not risk the further upset her return might cause our father, and she took my place as Mrs. Dupree’s companion while I boarded the train home alone. As Cade and Desi stood at the station, waving farewell, I never dreamed he would fall in love with her as soon as I disappeared from sight.

  “You were twins, weren’t you?” Lorraine’s question interrupted my thoughts, and I looked over to find her studying me closely, as if she sensed my lies. “If she was of an age when her whole life was ahead of her, weren’t you of that age as well?”

  The servants cleared away the soup bowls and brought in the main course while everyone stared at me, awaiting my answer to Lorraine’s question. Finally, when the servants had moved back to the kitchen, I shrugged.

  “I suppose that’s true. We were the same age, and I was young, still dreaming of a life other than the one I was given. But one of us had to go home, and I was the one we chose.”

  “How’d you do that? Draw straws? Flip a coin?” Calvin asked from his end of the table, his hooded eyes darting from me to Cade with interest.

  My own eyes were drawn to Cade, who was staring at me as if he had never seen me before.

  “You chose?” His voice was harsh and cold, slicing through me like a knife. “The both of you?”

  “Yes. I had always been the one to help my father—”

  “And to hell with the consequences?”

  “It was the right choice,” I assured him, determined to ignore the betrayal I detected in his questions. It wasn’t I who had betrayed him, after all.

  “For whom?”

  “For everyone.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “How could the two of you decide what was best for everyone?”

  I was silent, and, as if sensing the tremulous state of my emotions, Eleanor began to fill her plate while prattling on about something as mundane as the saddle she was having made for her horse. She was interrupted by Cade’s hand meeting the table in fury. I jumped, dropping my butter knife and dinner roll on the table.

  “Answer me, damn it!” Cade yelled as butter slid from my knife and pooled on the white linen tablecloth. “How did you and your sister decide who would stay and who would go?”

  My eyes darted from Cade to the others, who all stared at him in slack-jawed surprise. “Cade, there isn’t anything to say. I had to leave. My father needed me.”

  “Why you? Why not Desdemona?” he persisted.

  Although my half-truths obviously upset him, I refused to speak ill of her by telling of my father’s disowning her and his refusal to have her home. These people hated her, they didn’t mourn for her, didn’t care that she lay dead only a few rooms away. They only leaned forward in their chairs, anxious to hear the words that would justify their damnation of her.

  “She wasn’t well, and I was worried about her making the trip home. I doubted in her condition she would have been any help to my father.”

  He said nothing, simply stared at me with icy disdain that I imagined bordered on hatred.

  Tears sprang to my eyes, and I stood quickly, upsetting my wine glass so that the bright red liquid spread in a puddle about the buttery mess I had already made.

  “Excuse me,” I whispered.

  I rushed upstairs, where I threw myself across my bed and sobbed. I cried for Desdemona, the girl I once knew and the woman I never knew. I cried for my lost dreams of the future and all the futile hopes of reconciliation that I’d cherished all these years. I cried for her husband, who I still loved, and her child, who I’d just discovered. And I cried for the truth I was coming to see.

  For six years, I had tried unsuccessfully to convince myself that what Cade and I shared was nothing more than a youthful infatuation. I told myself that he and Desdemona were happy. I told myself that I had done the right thing and leaving them both behind had been for the best.

  Now I knew better. Obviously something had gone horribly wrong here in this house. My sister had not found the peace and happiness she had grasped for all of her life, and Cade had not found the love I hoped he had. Instead they had lived a life that made it possible for him to be the prime suspect in her murder.

  All this time, I had considered my loneliness a byproduct of my sister’s happiness. Instead I was beginning to think it was just a result of my own careless manipulation of our lives and my stubborn refusal to take the first step toward reconciliation.

  I eventually gained control of myself and got ready for bed. As I slipped between the sheets, I heard the murmured voices of the others coming up the stairwell and making their way to their bedchambers. I half expected Cade to stop, and at one point I was quite certain I felt his presence just beyond the wall, but soon his footsteps faded down the hall and were followed by the sound of a closing door.

  I must have drifted to sleep then, because I was jerked awake some time later by the sound of a woman weeping. A wailing keen, not unlike the mournful wind I had heard last night, wafted through the walls of my darkened room, and I remembered Mrs. Hartley’s strange expression when I had mentioned last night’s storm. Had this been what my exhausted mind heard and confused with the wind?

  I sat up in bed, shivering with fear as the muffled weeping continued. The thought of Desdemona, locked away in a coffin downstairs, sprang to my mind. I drove the thought away as quickly as it came. I would have to be insane to think that Desdemona, who had been dead nearly a week, could possibly be crying in the hallway. No, it had to be Eleanor or Lorraine, or even one of the maids.

  The weeping grew closer, and I battled the urge to sink back against the mattress and cover my head. If someone in this house was in such pain, it was my duty as my father’s daughter to offer them what comfort I could. I grabbed my Bible from the bedside table where it rested and slid from my bed. The ground was cold beneath my bare feet, but I hardly noticed as the weeping woman stopped outside my door. She moaned softly and a chill of apprehension rushed up my spine before I gathered my wits once more and hurried forward.

  I eased the door open, peering up and down the eerily silent hall.

  “Eleanor?’ I called quietly. “Lorraine?”

  A movement at one end of the hall caught my eyes, and I caught a glimpse of luminescent white fabric around the corner. I rushed to the end of the hallway, but found neither a turn to an adjoining corridor nor a door to another room.

  The wall that blocked my pursuit was almost completely covered by a life-size portrait of my sister with Cade and Tabitha. In the portrait, they all looked stunning, even Tabitha, who had been painted as a normal child of three or four years old. Gone were the flat features, muted eyes and tiny teeth of the child I had met in the nursery. In her place was what I guessed to be my sister’s version of the perfect child: angelic face, bouncing dark curls, and bright, intelligent eyes the exact color of our own. In truth, she looked just like I recalled Desi and myself looking at her age.

  Both Tabitha and her mother were dressed in white gowns, the same bright white as the gown I’d seen from my doorway. Had I somehow caught a glimpse of this portrait from my bedroom door? I reached a shaking hand toward the portrait. Would Desdemona’s dress feel as real as it looked?

  A hand closed on my shoulder, and I turned, the breath draining from me in a dizzying wave
of fear. My knees buckled and the Bible slipped from my numb fingers to the floor with a thud.

  I heard a quiet curse as the hand released my shoulder and an arm encircled my waist to keep me upright.

  I got my bearings quickly, recognizing the voice and arm through my fear. “Cade, you scared the life out of me.”

  “I spoke your name. I thought you heard me.”

  My hands were still shaking slightly, and I clutched them together to still them as I moved out of his grasp.

  “What are you doing out here?” He shot one look toward the picture I’d been staring at, then moved so that he stood with his back to it, facing me. I wondered if the sight of Desi looking so alive was too much for him to bear. Was it guilt or grief that caused such a reaction? He repeated his question, his voice sharp with impatience.

  “I heard someone crying. I came out to see if I could help them.”

  “Crying?” He looked genuinely confused.

  I glanced down the hall to the open door separated from my own by two closed ones. There was no way he wouldn’t have heard the crying woman.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear it. You had to have.”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Fee, but I didn’t hear anything except you. Perhaps you dreamed it.”

  Could I have been dreaming? It had been a stressful day, and I had been quite upset when I went to sleep. Could that have played a part in conjuring up such a vivid dream? Could my own grief for my sister haunt my dreams with wailing cries of distress? There was no other credible explanation, so I attempted to smile at my own foolishness.

  “Perhaps you’re right and it was nothing but a very realistic dream.”

  He touched my cheek. “You’ve had a hard time of it. Regardless of what the people here thought of Desdemona, she was your sister. Losing her has been difficult for you. Perhaps it would be a good idea for us to have the doctor stop in. He could prescribe something to help you sleep.”

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t need medication. I’ll be fine. It’s just so difficult for me to believe Desi is dead. I thought she and I would have time to reunite. She died without ever knowing that I forgave her or wanted her forgiveness.”