by Carolyn Hart
“It was. I was just a little kid then, but I remember it like yesterday.”
“But why in the world would Grandmother want her daughter to marry him?”
“The pride of the Devereaux.” Merrick’s voice was grim now.
They had reached the dock, and the sound of their footsteps on the wooden planks hung in the still air.
“Yes, the pride of the Devereaux.” He shaded his eyes against the sun. “I don’t know if you can ever quite understand what it means to Carrie to be a Devereaux, to carry on the family name. That’s why she never likes it to be mentioned that we were really Simpsons, born to my mother before she married Andrew Devereaux. We are Aunt Carrie’s avenue to the future, to the continuation of the Devereaux name. And, of course, it seemed quite reasonable to her that your mother would marry John Edward. It would work out, because, of course, they weren’t really blood kin, but he carried the Devereaux name. And you have to understand that they liked each other. In fact, I think he loved her, because he’s never married. Yes, it was a terrible shock to everyone. That’s why Carrie wouldn’t have a thing to do with her daughter after she ran away.”
“Carrie must have been very angry.”
“She was. And she felt sorry for John Edward.” He looked at Leah, than said slowly, “When he sees you, it must hurt like the devil.”
“Surely not after all these years!”
“Can you ever really forget someone you’ve loved?” he asked quietly.
They walked on in silence, and Leah realized they were almost at the end of the rickety wooden dock where the yacht had tied up. She shaded her eyes against the brilliant morning sun.
It hadn’t been sunny that day when her mother and father had walked on the weathered dock for the last time.
Leah shivered.
Merrick slipped his arm around her shoulders. “Don’t, Leah. It doesn’t do any good to imagine.”
He understood. She clung to that. Merrick knew how she felt inside.
“I don’t remember them,” she said huskily. She looked up at him, still secure in the shelter of his arm. “You knew them. Oh, Merrick, what were they like?”
He hesitated, then said slowly, “I was just a kid, as I said. And that day was the only time I ever met your father.”
She waited tensely to hear more.
“He was furious. Your mother was mad, too. She was quick to get mad, but just as quick to have it blow over, like a spring storm. And she laughed a lot. I remember that.” He looked down at Leah and smiled. “It’s been so long ago now. But I always remember that she laughed a lot.”
Leah pictured a dark-haired girl standing on the dock, the river breeze blowing her soft white dress. The girl looked over her shoulder, and her face curved with laughter. Sudden tears burned in Leah’s eyes.
Merrick pulled her close. “Don’t cry. I’m here, and it’s all right. Whatever happened, it’s all right.”
She wanted to object, to say that it wasn’t all right, that the truth about her parents could make a difference. But suddenly his mouth was on hers, and there was no more time for thought, only for feeling, for the sweep of happiness that lifted her like a current of air carrying a bird into the heavens.
When they did speak, in soft and jumbled phrases, Leah didn’t try to make sense of what was happening, didn’t try to measure and weigh it. She only knew she’d never felt this way before.
“I had no idea it could be true,” Merrick murmured.
“What could be true?”
“Love at first sight.”
She tried to shake her head, but his mouth found hers again. And again. Then, because her heart was beating too fast, and because warmth and a wonderful desire flooded her, she pulled away. “We’d . . . we’d better go in.”
He held her tightly. “Do you really want to?”
She looked up at him, her eyes vulnerable.
“All right,” he said with a hint of laughter in his voice. “I’ll take you in, Miss Leah. But I want you to know the battle lines are drawn. You’re going to be mine. You’ve come home to Devereaux Plantation, and you’re never going to leave.”
She tugged at his hand, and they started back up the wide, oak-lined avenue.
“Never?” she asked, bantering, trying to ease the pounding of her heart.
“Never.”
As they neared Devereaux House, Leah looked at it with new eyes. Would she never leave it? Had Merrick meant that literally? Before she thought, she asked impulsively, “But, Merrick, didn’t you say you lived at Ashwood?”
“Yes,” he replied easily. “But it isn’t far from here. Actually, Cissy and Hal have lived here for years, all during the time Aunt Carrie was in Nice. And, of course, she’s had them stay on because it really is their home. She wouldn’t put them out.”
“Of course not.”
“And John Edward’s always lived here, too.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a lawyer, and you know I’m a farmer. But today I’m your tour guide.”
After they lunched on the west veranda with Carrie, Merrick took Leah on a leisurely tour of Mefford. When they stood on the bluff and looked down at the old wharf, she said, “I feel like I’ve come home.”
He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “You have. Just like all your forebears who sailed into this harbor. The only difference is that you came by way of a Vega.”
She laughed; “That’s quite a difference.” She shaded her eyes to look out at the brownish river. “It looks deep.”
“It is. Either swim well or wear water wings if you fall into the Mefford. But it’s the reason the town is one of the finest natural draft harbors on the coast. Settlers first landed in 1711. They built their homes up here. Then there was the fire.”
“A bad one?”
“Very.” He pointed toward the old frame homes behind them. “Of those early houses, only that gold-toned one, the third house, survived the fire. It’s the oldest house still standing in Mefford.”
Leah stared at him with admiration. “My goodness, you do know your town!”
A look of surprise touched his face. “You know, I suppose I do. Guess I had too many third-grade tours with a teacher who was a history nut. But it does make it fun. I suppose I know something about every house and every family in this old part of town.”
Then they took a walk through the cemetery. Today, with Merrick by her side, it wasn’t depressing or frightening. Leah gave only a glance to the stone shaped like a sailing sloop. Instead, she moved from stone to stone and listened as he told her about some early renegade-type Devereaux.
“So not all my ancestors have been predictable,” she observed.
“Not at all.” He laughed. “Actually, I learned about them from Old Jason. Aunt Carrie would be appalled if she knew.”
Hand in hand, they walked back up the brick path toward the street.
“I’ll have to admit, I’ve been feeling rather daunted by this grand family,” Leah said. “Now I feel much more at home.”
“As a Devereaux in name only, I can well understand that,” he agreed. “Old Jason never tired of telling us Devereaux stories.” His voice had softened when he mentioned Jason.
She squeezed his hand. “You really cared for him, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. And I still do.”
“Still do?” An understanding flooded her, she held tightly to his hand. “Is he still alive?”
“Yes, and he claims to be a hundred and three. That may be so. His memory stretches back for generations. A lot of those memories of his youth are clearer to him than what happened yesterday.”
“I want to see him. Oh, Merrick, I want so much to talk to him! He knew my mother—better than anyone. Please, take me to him—now!”
They couldn’t go fast enough to suit her. She tugged at his elbow and set almost a running pace along the two blocks to the car. Once in the station wagon, she sat on the edge of the seat, impatient as they stopped for red lights, eager
when they reached the highway. When the car jolted down a sandy track that led onto Devereaux Plantation, she said happily, “He cared for my mother, didn’t he?”
“If ever Old Jason cared for anyone, it was Mary Ellen, though he was wonderful to all of us. But she held a special place in his heart. And, since I’ve met you, I understand why.”
“Do you think I’m so much like her?”
“Very much.”
They passed a tumbledown heap of old buildings. Merrick said, “That’s one of the places where Ellis is excavating. Next time we’ll stop and take a look.”
The car rattled over a wooden bridge and slowed to a stop in front of a weathered cabin. An old wagon wheel marked the edge of the drive. As Merrick opened the car door for her, she stumbled a little in her eagerness, then started ahead of him up the hard-packed dirt path.
The front door of the cabin swung open, and, a very old man stepped out, shading his eyes against the sunlight. He was frail and thin, his shoulders stooped, his dark hair grizzled.
“Old Jason,” Leah called out.
His head jerked back. He raised his hands out in front of him, as if warding off an attack. “Oh, dear Lord.” His voice rose in a wail. “It’s Miss Mary Ellen. She done come for me—and I know it’s my time. Miss Mary Ellen, I didn’t mean to do no bad thing—” He fell to the ground and lay there in a faint.
Leah knelt beside him while Merrick went inside the cabin to call for help. Until the ambulance arrived, she stayed with Jason, holding his hand and, when he opened his eyes, explaining that she was Mary Ellen’s daughter.
Jason was embarrassed then. “I’m a silly old fool,” he gasped.
“No, oh, no, Old Jason. I know you were my mother’s best friend and Merrick’s. Please, now, please get well, and then you and I can talk about my mother when she was little.”
He clung to her hand, his own weak and dry. “I do like to remember that. I do like to remember, before the bad times came. . . .” Then he closed his eyes.
“Jason?”
“It’s all right.” Merrick reassured her. “He’s just resting.”
“Resting. Mighty tired, I am.”
Leah didn’t cry until after the ambulance had taken Jason away.
Merrick gave her a little shake. “Leah, don’t be so upset. He just fainted. He’ll rest up in the hospital and be all right—or at least as fine as a man his age can be.”
“I thought I made him have a heart attack.” She wiped a hand against her tear-streaked face.
“No. He’s unsteady on his feet and prone to fainting spells, that’s all. Why, he didn’t even want to go to the hospital, but I’d told Dr. Jarvis to give him a private room and baby him for a few days. When he’s stronger, he’ll talk to you.”
Leah felt better by the time they reached the plantation house. She grasped Merrick’s hand. “It was a wonderful day until—”
“Go rest, and don’t worry about Old Jason. I promise you, he will be fine.”
His voice was confident, of course. He was always confident, but his sense of surety refreshed her.
“Thank you, then, for a wonderful day.”
“I’ll see you at dinner.”
Once she was inside the house, her feeling of happiness ebbed as she thought about Old Jason. She stopped by her grandmother’s room to tell her what had happened.
Carrie was sitting in a petit-point-covered chair by the window, holding an unopened book in her lap. She looked up with a smile when Leah entered. Upon hearing the story, the old lady shook her head, but she was still smiling.
“He is an old fool—has the vapors like that. But he’ll be fine. I’ll have Lilac send him some special beef broth. Now, don’t you fret, child. He will be fine, and it will mean the world to him to have you here.” She reached out and took Leah’s hand. “Did you have a happy afternoon, my dear?”
“Oh, Grandmother, yes. We had so much fun.”
She thought about the afternoon, the good part of it, as she walked down the hall to her room. She was startled when she looked at her watch and saw the time. It was almost six. She and Merrick had made a day of it. What would they do tomorrow?
The idea of a tomorrow spent with him lifted the last edges of her depression. There would be a happy tomorrow, and many more. Jason would get well, and she would talk to him and find out more about her mother. She could learn so much—Then the dark remembrance came. Could she learn what had happened to her mother and father on the last night of their lives?
But tonight she wouldn’t worry about that. Tonight she would not let the mystery of their death ruin the lovely yet tenuous bond between her and Merrick.
After her bath, a languorous one, she slipped into a dramatic black-and-white linen dress that emphasized the darkness of her eyes and hair.
The look in Merrick’s eyes as she came down the stairs told her that she did indeed look lovely.
They went into the library for cocktails and, when the gong sounded a half hour later, walked into the dining room together. The conversation at dinner was relaxed. Cissy recounted the latest news of the Mefford Historical Society. Hal discussed a hunt that was planned for next week. John Edward regaled them with the details of his day in court. Carrie listened to everyone and made occasional dry comments.
But when they went back to the library after dinner, the atmosphere was changed. Leah felt as if she were in a room full of mannequins, not people—and she knew why. Tonight they would talk about the long-ago evening when The New Star left Devereaux Plantation.
Her grandmother took her place in the wing chair that made her look frail and small. Cissy and Hal sat side by side on a petit-point love seat. Merrick leaned against the mantel, his eyes fastened on Leah. John Edward stood also, his legs apart, his hands jammed in his pockets.
Each face, as it turned toward Carrie Devereaux, was smooth and blank. Even, Leah realized with a pang, Merrick’s face. And what did this evening mean to John Edward, who at one time had hoped to marry her mother? How did he feel? Did he still care for the memory of Mary Ellen, or did he hate the woman who had jilted him?
Carrie Devereaux looked from one to the other. “All of you were here the afternoon Mary Ellen came.”
Hal shifted on the love seat. “Now, Aunt Carrie, you remember that was before Cissy and I had decided to marry. We were just going around together then. I’d dropped by to see her, but I didn’t stay to meet Mary Ellen and the new husband. Seemed to me like it might be awkward, so I begged off. Told Cissy I’d better get home and see if the shutters were going up all right. That was the day before the big blow.”
No one commented. Leah supposed it seemed natural to all of them that Hal made it a point to avoid any unpleasantness. Cissy certainly looked as if this were a perfectly natural way to behave. It was clear that whatever Hal did would be absolutely all right with Cissy. Was it physical passion that attracted her, or Hal’s social position? Cissy was obsessed with pride of place, but she also seemed genuinely obsessed with Hal. She must have been irritated when Mary Ellen’s arrival drove away the beau she so definitely wanted.
“The wind was rising when I left,” Hal continued. “Everybody was boarding up.”
“That’s what I was doing,” John Edward chimed in. “I was helping Jason with the shutters when The New Star came into view.” He shook his head, and Leah could picture his bewilderment of nineteen years ago. “I couldn’t believe it at first. But Old Jason knew.”
Carrie nodded calmly enough, but her hands twisted her fine cambric handkerchief into a knot.
“Old Jason’s face was as gray as the sky,” John Edward went on. “He said, ‘I don’t know how I’m gain’ to tell Miss Mary Ellen.’“
“I saw the boat arrive,” Merrick offered. “I was boarding up the third-floor windows. I ran down to the pier to help them tie up. I was there when Old Jason told Mary Ellen that Aunt Carrie had left.”
“Tom wanted to pull right out,” John Edward said. “He was furious. He stood
there on the pier, the wind flattening his clothes against him, and he looked ready to fight. God, the wind was bad. The palmettos sounded like cane being thrashed. But Mary Ellen said she wasn’t leaving until she knew what Old Jason meant about The Whispering Lady—and her mother’s accidents.”
Merrick nodded. “She stormed off up the path. That’s the last I saw of her. The wind was blowing harder and harder. I went back to help batten down the rest of the house.”
“Yeah,” John Edward said slowly, “she was mad as hell.”
“Why?” Leah asked.
For an instant, John Edward’s eyes focused on her. “God, you do look like Mary Ellen.” Then his mouth thinned. “But you aren’t really like her. She was a hellcat when she was crossed.”
Leah shrank a little. Her parents were so indistinct to her. Louisa Shaw had rarely spoken of them. Perhaps she had felt that if she did it would open the floodgates, and she would have to tell all.
But as John Edward described it, the reunion on the pier was awkward. Tom, furious that Mary Ellen’s mother left, had wanted to sail away immediately.
Leah saw him a little more clearly, young and full of pride.
“They had a hell of a fight, right there on the pier,” John Edward said. He recalled it with a kind of relish. “Mary Ellen was raging—at me, at her mother, at Tom. Then she said she didn’t care what kind of stiff-necked, self-centered fool her mother was, she didn’t intend to leave until she knew the truth about Aunt Carrie’s accidents.
“Tom went back to the boat, leaving Mary Ellen and me on the pier. He didn’t intend, ever, to set foot on Devereaux land again.
“It wasn’t even five o’clock yet, but it was already getting dark because of the storm clouds. The sky was slate-gray with streaks of red, and the wind was gusting from the south-southeast. I told Mary Ellen all I knew while we walked up to the house. I left her on the lower veranda, looking down toward the pond and the willows—that’s where the ghost’s always seen. I went on upstairs to help Jason board the windows. No one knew how bad the storm was going to be. I had so much to do that I didn’t even think about her until after dark, and it was raining hard by then. But when morning came, the boat was gone. I was sorry about it, but not surprised. I knew Tom wanted to get the hell out, no matter how bad the weather was.”
