“When I woke, I found our sheets bloodstained and Caroline sobbing in a chair by the window,” he continued without turning to face me. “Fighting a deuce of a headache and nausea, I struggled out of bed and went to her, but she shoved away my attempts to comfort her. She called me a great drunken lout who’d forced a virgin through a night of pain and degradation no decent woman should ever have to endure.”
He turned back toward me, his face pale and grim, a nervous tick afflicting his jaw. “I was on my knees, apologizing for God only knew what, and begging her forgiveness, when I saw the small cut on her arm. Suddenly it was all crystal clear. My father believed he had purchased me a virgin bride. What I’d gotten was a woman of experience…experienced enough to have gotten me drunk and then feigned virginity with a blood-marked bed. I was incensed.” He strode to a chair by my bed and sat down. “Hung over and disillusioned, I grabbed her. I called her a lying slut. In spite of her screams and struggles, I forced her into the bed. I was…raping her, when Father burst in, Burt and Harry close on his heels. Those two apes pulled me from her and dragged me from the room while Father set about comforting her. Her! The bitch! The deceitful, pernicious bitch.”
“Randall, I’m sorry,” I said. I recalled Colin’s similar ruse on our wedding night. My young husband had lacked the guile to devise such a scheme on his own. “Did you tell Colin?”
“When Burt and Harry dragged me from Caroline, I was naked,” he said without embarrassment. “They couldn’t leave me standing in the hallway, so they thrust me into Colin’s room. Poor boy! I’ll never forget the expression of shock on his face as he bolted upright in his bed. He was only fifteen, too young to fully understand the situation, and had I not been distraught to the point of madness, I would not have elaborated. But I did, in glowing, obscene detail, as I struggled into some of his clothes and vomited in his dressing room. Then I left. I was gone for over a month, drunk in Halifax for most of it. I was penniless and ill when Barret found me and brought me home.”
He began to search the pockets of his coat and vest. “I need a cigar.”
“There’s none in this room,” I said. “Colin didn’t smoke.”
“Yes, yes, of course. My brother had few of my vices.”
“Randall, you don’t have to tell me all this.” I could feel his pain and wanted it to stop.
“No, actually I do,” he surprised me by replying. “Telling someone, someone kind and generous of spirit, is just what I need right now. It relieves my soul, much as Barret claims confession in his church restores his.”
“Very well.” I pulled myself upright against the pillows. “I’m listening.”
“Then came another infamy.” He leaned back in his chair and resumed his story. “As soon as I was well, Father insisted Caroline and I take a wedding trip to show the village we were reconciled. I hated the idea but was too beaten at that point to fight. In Boston, I contracted a child’s disease. Being a doctor, I knew what it did to an adult male. As I lay in that hotel bed, sweating with fever, I knew I would be sterile when I recovered.”
“Randall…” I tried to think of words of comfort, but none came.
“Quite a love story, isn’t it, sweet sister?” He headed for the door. “Thank you for having the courage to listen…and the heart to accept me as I am.”
After Randall left, I fell into an exhausted sleep. When I awoke, a cold January sun was piercing into the room where I lay. Outside, the wind howled as it buffeted the windows with drifting snow and wailed down the chimneys.
“Awake at last.”
Abraham Douglas’s voice startled me. I turned away from the window to see him seated in a chair near the door. He got stiffly to his feet and came to tower over me, his shadow large and dark as it fell across the sunlit bed.
A sick feeling welling in my stomach, I wondered what he wanted, how long it would be before he threw my child and me out of his house again.
“Randall informs me you brought your child here ill with fever,” he said. “He’s also told me the boy is strong and resilient and will soon be right as rain.”
What new infamy is the man building up to?
“It is now apparent I will never have a natural grandson.” He went to look out the window, his back to me, “Therefore, I will legally adopt your boy and raise him as my own flesh and blood.”
“You’d take my child?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You will stay in this house and mother him until he reaches twelve years of age,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “At that time I will send him abroad to be educated. After he leaves, you may either take a generous cash settlement and depart or remain here as housekeeper. There is only one further condition. Neither of you is ever to see Barret Madison again.”
“This is insane. I won’t deny my son the right to know his father.”
“I advise you not to be hasty.” Abraham moved closer to the bed and spoke softly in the cold threatening way he used when he was deadly determined. “Presently your boy is penniless, with no prospects. As my legal grandson, he will become a powerful, wealthy man when he matures. You yourself will be comfortably settled for life. Forget about Barret Madison. He’s a whorehouse tramp. He’ll never be able to give either of you a decent future. Think, my girl. Think of your son, if not of yourself.”
“Why do you want my child?” I asked, recovering sufficiently to question him. “Surely there are many so-called penniless bastards in this valley you might adopt.”
“Ah, yes, but not with his bloodlines. His father, for all his infamous beginnings, is the strongest, cleverest, most resourceful man I’ve ever known. Barret Madison is tough and wise in just the right proportions. And you, my girl, are bright, beautiful, and fearless. Furthermore, both of you were in excellent health at the time of his conception. This child could not have come of a better mating.”
“Like horse breeding. Get the best stallion to cover the best mare.”
“Exactly.” Undeterred by my analogy, he said, “Now, there’s another alternative I can suggest to my first offer.” He moved nearer the bed to tower over me. “If you feel you must be with Madison, I’ll give you a sizable cash settlement and the Maris Stella immediately, on condition you both sail out of this river never to return or see your child again.”
“You must be insane. How dare you suggest we sell our child for a ship and a bit of money!”
“Ah, but not just any ship.” He smiled satanically. “The Maris Stella. You forget that Frenchman you married loves that ship like a mistress, has loved her for much longer than he’s known you, and your child. He might not see my proposition as such an unworthy compromise. After all, he apparently produces issue as easily as he spews forth French. You can give him another child. His beloved ship? Ah, now that’s an entirely different matter.”
****
Colin was very ill. Randall decreed he would need a warm environment and an abundance of good food in order to recover. He told his father the child must remain in Peacock House for the remainder of the winter.
Abraham agreed without protest. When Randall continued by saying that it would be best if I was kept close by to reassure the child, however, Abraham’s eyes glinted with malicious intent.
“Of course she may stay near the boy if it’s in his best interest,” he said. “I will, however, insist she pay her way. They need a scullery maid in the kitchen.”
I knew I could not refuse. My son needed the care and amenities Peacock House could provide, and I had to be near him. Swallowing my outrage, I set to my task of scrubbing pots and pans.
****
It was a bitterly cold night filled with harsh, gusting wind and high, swirling eddies of loose snow that, at times, blotted out the stars and moon riding high in the subzero January sky.
I sat by the big iron stove in the kitchen of Peacock House, a shawl about my shoulders, my feet swathed in woolen stockings, and wished there would be news, any news. Randall had been missing since
midafternoon of the previous day. It was nearing three in the morning and searchers still had found no trace of him.
Even Caroline had gone out at dusk, dressed in men’s trousers, fur hat, and greatcoat, to search the immediate vicinity for him. Looking like a strange little man, she’d returned a half hour later crusted with snow, her face hidden behind a scarf. She’d had no success in her search, either, she said, as she stripped off her odd outerwear before the parlor fire.
Randall had been drinking heavily before he left the house. He’d quarreled with Caroline and gone to be with Bridgit. Ordinarily I’d have applauded his decision, but the temperature had been well below zero, with a flesh-freezing wind lashing the bitter air into a life-threatening force. I’d pleaded with him not to leave the house.
“I have to go, Starr,” he insisted, pulling on his fur coat and hat. “It can’t be any more bitter outside than it is inside this house.”
“Randall, please be reasonable,” I begged. “Come to my room. We can talk.”
He paused and looked down at me, his haggard face gentle and compassionate. “You’re all I could wish for in a sister,” he replied. “But I must go. At this moment, I need more comfort than even you can offer. Please try to understand.”
“Randall, please…”
“I can’t stay near her another minute, Starr,” he said, his jaw working with a nervous tick. “I found a powder among her things just now, the prime ingredient of a potion that causes pregnant women to miscarry. Do you realize what that means? It was my wife who put that poison in your milk last summer. She tried to murder Barret’s child!”
“Randall, no. She couldn’t.”
“Oh, but she could and did. I’ve told her I’m divorcing her, that I never want to see her again. She’s a witch, and neither my father nor threats of the eternal damnation of my soul will keep me in this Hades of a marriage a minute longer. I’m going to be with Bridgit. Tomorrow I’ll come and fetch you and Colin. You mustn’t remain near her any longer than necessary. If it weren’t so cold, I’d take you with me now.”
“Randall…!”
He touched my cheek gently with a gloved hand. “Be very careful, sweet sister…until tomorrow.” Then he’d turned and gone out into that awful cold. He hadn’t been seen again.
I was startled out of my reflections by a disturbance at the front entrance. I flew from my chair and into the front hallway to discover the reason for the commotion. A group of fur-swathed figures, headed by Jared Fletcher, were carrying a snow-crusted body into the house.
“Randall!” His name flew from me just as Abraham, Caroline, and Gram hastened out of the parlor.
“We found him only a few hundred yards from this house,” Fletcher said, pulling off his frozen mittens. “He’s suffered a blow to the back of his head, and he’s lost a lot of blood. The snow around him was crimson with it.”
“Is he still lucid?” Caroline asked quickly.
“Yes,” Jared said as the rescuers followed Abraham’s beckoning and carried my brother-in-law toward the stairs. “But just barely.”
****
“Help me get him into bed,” Abraham ordered Caroline when he, Gram, and I were alone with Randall and his wife in Randall’s room.
“I…I can’t!” Caroline whimpered in what I knew was only a well-feigned display of distress. “My nerves…I simply can’t!” She fled in a rustle of skirts.
“Fetch Captain Fletcher, Mother,” Abraham ordered. “If his wife won’t help him, my commodore will.”
“Captain Fletcher is treating the search party to brandy and hot food in the dining room,” I said. “I’ll help you.”
“Undressing a half-frozen, blood-soaked man is not a fitting task for a woman,” he said, turning to face me.
“I’m a married woman and I’ve not led a sheltered life, Mr. Douglas.” I went to the bed and began to open Randall’s snow-encrusted greatcoat. “Now let us get to the task before your son suffers any further.”
****
I was sitting with Randall when he regained consciousness. His head was wrapped with bandages, beneath which his face held a ghastly pallor. He had not stirred in the twenty-four hours since his rescue, but when he opened his eyes I started with hope.
“Little sister,” he whispered, and tried to smile over fever-cracked lips.
“Don’t try to talk,” I begged, kneeling beside the bed and touching his wasted cheek. “Rest. Regain your strength.”
“Sweet, darling little optimist,” he breathed. “You’ve always been there when I needed you. Never change. Barret deserves you.”
“Randall…”
“Listen to me, Starr. You must tell Bridgit…tell Bridgit I love her…more than life itself. Tell her we shall be together, as I promised. Tell her I will marry her.”
He began to cough. I could only hold him and soothe him until the spasm had subsided and he fell back, semiconscious, on his pillows. He began to rave. “Someone behind me…following me… No! No! Stay back! Don’t— You must be insane!”
Then he lapsed back into unconsciousness. Who had been following him? Who had he termed insane?
The following morning Randall Douglas died without regaining consciousness.
We placed him in the little stone mausoleum in the Presbyterian cemetery for burial in the spring. The entire village turned out for the funeral in spite of subzero temperatures, high drifts, and low-hanging clouds that promised still more snow.
I stood in the outer circle of mourners about the mausoleum, the cold air penetrating my shabby cloak, and trembled. Abraham, his face ashen, held Gram’s arm in a viselike grip as if she were supporting him. The tough old lady stood erect and dry-eyed beside the coffin. Jared Fletcher, seemingly oblivious to the gossip he created, stood beside Caroline, his hand at her elbow.
Randall’s wife kept her head bent in feigned grief, a heavy black veil obscuring her face. What an accomplished actress, she who tried to kill my child.
When the service ended, I started back toward the sleigh that had brought several of us servants to the cemetery. I glanced across the windswept graveyard and saw Bridgit standing alone beneath a gnarled, dead tree, away from the crowd of villagers who’d attended the funeral. Her face was red and swollen. A cheap black woolen shawl covered her head, but her hands, protruding from the sleeves of her shabby coat, were swathed in an elegant mink muff. I recalled Randall telling me he’d given her one for Christmas.
“Her poor little hands are cracked and bleeding from the cold in the fish sheds,” he’d said, distressed at her suffering. “I must get her a decent muff. It’s the least I can do.”
“I’ll be along shortly,” I said to Rose, who was beside me. “There’s someone I must see.”
I left the maid gaping after me and hastened to Bridgit’s side.
“Bridgit.” I took her arm with all the urgency I was feeling. “I need your help. Without Randall, Colin is no longer safe in Peacock House. I know it’s a great deal to ask, but will you take my boy in again?”
She nodded without the slightest hesitation. “And you’ll come, too. We’ll all live together once again. Randy would have wanted it that way.”
“No.” I shook my head. “That is too much to expect of you. Don’t worry. I’ll be safe. No one there has any reason to try to harm me.”
****
“I loved him, Starr,” Bridgit said as we sat by the stove in her cabin that afternoon, tin mugs of coffee steaming in our hands. “He was trying to find a way he could take care of all of us, you and Colin and Mary and me. He was a fine man.”
“He told me how he loved you and how he longed to be free to marry you,” I said softly. “On the night he was injured, he was leaving her to go to you…forever.”
“Oh, dear God!” she breathed. “Why then?”
“He’d learned something about Caroline he couldn’t bear,” I said. “He’d learned she’d tried to kill my baby.”
“The witch! The bloody, rotten witch! Small wo
nder Randy could stand no more! He loved children so. We should have married and had a dozen!”
She broke down, sobbing. “We could have been so happy, Starr, if it hadn’t been for his meddling father and her. His father ordered him to marry her, five years ago. She was of a fine old English family, he said, a genuine lady of quality.” She blew her nose on her handkerchief before she continued.
“I first saw him on his wedding day. My brother and I had just arrived from Ireland and were building this cabin. I remember thinking how wonderful Randy was, the moment I clapped eyes on him outside the church. If I could have such a man, all my dreams would come true, I recall thinking.”
“He was as handsome as he was kind and generous.”
“My brother went to work in the Douglas shipyards and I in Peacock House as Caroline’s lady’s maid.” She cleared her throat and blinked. “Then the miracle happened. Randy noticed me. His marriage had proven no source of joy to him, and he was realizing the mistake he’d made. We talked one morning as I served his breakfast while he sat alone in the dining room. From that moment we knew there was something special between us.”
She went to replenish her cup at the stove.
“Oh, we tried to deny it, both of us in fear of committing the sin of adultery,” she continued when she’d resumed her seat. “But, finally, one night it happened. Declaring him a perverted scoundrel for seeking his marital rights, she ordered him from her bed. He got drunk and came to my room in the servants’ quarters on the third floor. It was inevitable.” She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “We were in love—there could be no further denying the fact. That night we became lovers. Though I knew it was wrong, I don’t for a moment regret the fact. I swear, Starr, I loved him and he loved me. Such could not be a sin.”
“No, it couldn’t,” I reassured her. “Love can never be sinful.”
She stood and went to look out a window into a bleak, bitterly cold January twilight which was drawing itself like a shroud over the valley.
Shadows of Love Page 28
