Red lily

sixteen

IN THE PARLOR where the light was soft through gauzy curtains and the air was sweet with roses, Harper stood by the front window with his fists balled in his pockets.

“She was wrecked,” he said with his back to the room. “She just sort of folded up when I got there, and even when she pulled it together, she looked sick.”

“She wasn’t hurt.” Mitch held up a hand when Harper whirled. “I know how you feel. I do. But she wasn’t physically harmed, and that’s important.”

“This time,” he shot back. “It’s out of hand. All of this is fucking out of hand.”

“Only more reason for us to stick together, and stay calm.”

“I’ll be calm when she’s out of the house.”

“Amelia,” Logan asked, “or Hayley?”

“Right now? Both.”

“You know she can stay with us. And if I were in your shoes, I’d want to pack her up and haul her out. But from what I gather, you tried that once and it didn’t work. If you think you’ve got a better shot at it now, I’ll carry her suitcase.”

“She won’t budge. What the hell is wrong with these women?”

“They feel connected.” David spread his hands. “Even when they see Amelia at her worst, they feel attached. Engaged. Right or wrong, Harp, there’s a kind of solidarity.”

“And it’s her home,” Mitch added. “As much as yours now, or mine. She won’t walk out of it and leave this undone. Any more than you, or I, or any or us.” He glanced around the room. “So we finish it.”

Logic, even truth, didn’t settle Harper’s anger, or his worry. “You didn’t see her after it happened.”

“No, but I’ve got the gist from what you told me. She matters to me, too, Harper. To all of us.”

“All for one, great. I’m for it.” His gaze shifted to the parlor doors, and his mind traveled upstairs, to Hayley. “But she’s the one on the line.”

“Agreed.” Mitch leaned forward in his chair to draw Harper’s attention back to him. “Let’s look at what happened for a minute. Hayley was taken through childbirth, and a traumatic aftermath when Amelia was told the baby was dead. And she went through this while she was napping with Lily. But Lily wasn’t disturbed. That tells me that there’s no intent to harm or even frighten the baby. If there were, how long do you think it would take Hayley to head out that door?”

“That may be true, but to get whatever it is she wants, Amelia’s going to keep using Hayley, and using her hard.”

“I agree.” Mitch nodded. “Because it works. Because this way she’s feeding us information we might not ever be able to find. We know now that not only was her child taken from her, but that she was told, cruelly, that it was dead. It’s hardly a wonder that her mind, which already seemed to be somewhat imbalanced, shattered.”

“We can assume she came here for him,” Logan suggested. “And died here.”

“Well, the kid’s dead, too. Dead as she is, dead as disco.” Harper slumped into a chair. “She’s not going to find him here.”

UPSTAIRS, HAYLEY WOKE from a light doze. The curtains were pulled so the light was dim but for a thin chink. She saw Roz sitting, reading a book in that narrow spear of light.

“Lily.”

Roz set the book aside and rose. “Stella has her. She took her and the boys over to the other wing to play so you’d have some quiet. How are you feeling?”

“Exhausted. A little raw inside yet.” But she sighed, comforted when Roz sat and stroked her hair. “It was harder than when I had Lily, rougher and longer. I know it was only a few minutes, really, but it seemed like hours. Hours and hours of pain and heat. Then this awful muzzy feeling toward the end. They gave her something, and it made her kind of float away, but it was almost worse.”

“Laudanum, I imagine. Nothing like a shot of opiate.”

“I heard the baby cry.” Struggling to relax, Hayley curled on her side, tilting her head up to keep Roz in her line of sight. “You know how it is, no matter what’s gone on in those hours before, everything inside you rising up when you hear your baby cry the first time.”

“Hers.” Roz took Hayley’s hand. “Not yours.”

“I know, I know, but for that instant he was mine. And that horrible tearing grief, that crazy disbelief when the doctor said it was stillborn, that was mine, too.”

“I’ve never lost a child,” Roz told her. “I can’t even imagine the pain of it.”

“They lied to her, Roz. I guess he paid them, too. They lied, but she knew. She heard the baby cry, and she knew. It drove her crazy.”

Roz shifted on the bed, angling so she could rest Hayley’s head on her lap. And sat in silence, staring at that thin lance of light through the curtains.

“She didn’t deserve it,” Hayley started.

“No. She didn’t deserve it.”

“Whatever she was, whatever she did, she didn’t deserve to be treated that way. She loved the baby, but . . .”

“But what?”

“It wasn’t right, the way she loved it. It wasn’t a healthy sort of thing. She wouldn’t have been a good mother.”

“How do you know?”

“I felt . . .” Obsession, she thought, hunger. Impossible to describe the vastness of it. “It had to be a boy, you see? A girl wouldn’t have mattered to her. A girl wouldn’t have been just a disappointment, but an outrage. And if she’d had the boy and kept it, she would’ve twisted it. Not on purpose, but he wouldn’t have been the man he was. He wouldn’t have been the one who loved his dog and buried it with a marker, and loved your grandmother. And none of this would be the way it is.”

She turned her head so that she could look up at Roz. “You, Harper. Nothing would be the same. But it doesn’t make it right. It still doesn’t make what happened right.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice if everything balanced in the world? If right came out on top and wrong was punished. It sure would be simple.”

Hayley’s lips curved. “Then Justin Terrell, who cheated on me in tenth grade, would be fat and bald and asking people if they want fries with that instead of being part owner of a successful sport’s bar and bearing a strong resemblance to Toby McGuire.”

“Isn’t that just the way?”

“Then again, maybe I’d go to hell for not telling Lily’s biological father about her.”

“Your motives were pure.”

“Mostly. I guess doing what’s best isn’t always doing what’s right. It was best for that baby to be raised here, at Harper House.”

“Not the same thing, Hayley. No one’s motives were pure, or even mostly, in that case. Lies and deceit, cold cruelty, and selfishness. I shudder to think what might have become of that child had it been a girl. You feeling better now?”

“Lots.”

“Why don’t I go down, fix you something to eat? I’ll bring you food on a tray.”

“I’ll go down. I know Mitch wants to record all this. I know Harper’s probably told him by now, but it’s better if I give it to him firsthand. And I think I’ll feel better yet when I do.”

“If you’re sure.”

She nodded as she pushed herself up on the bed. “Thanks for sitting with me. It felt good knowing you were here while I slept.”

She glanced in the mirror, winced. “I’m going to put on some makeup first. I may be possessed by a ghost, but I don’t have to look like one.”

“That’s my girl. I’ll go let Stella know you’re up and around.”

HAYLEY FIGURED SHE owed Roz another one when she realized everything had been arranged so that just she and Mitch would sit in the library to document the experience.

It was easier, somehow, to talk only to him. He was so smart and scholarly, in a studly kind of way. Sort of Harrison Fordish, in hornrims she decided.

With the leading edge of the fatigue and the shock dulled by a little sleep and a lot of TLC, she felt steadier, and more in control.

In any case, she loved this room. All the books, all those stories, all those words. Gardens outside the windows, big cozy chairs inside.

When she’d first come to Harper House she’d sometimes tiptoe down at night, just to sit in this room—her favorite of all of them—and marvel.

And she liked the way Mitch approached the whole Amelia project. With his work boards, his computer, his files and notes, he made it all rational, doable, grounded.

She studied the board now, with its long lists and columns that comprised Harper’s family tree.

“Do you think, after all this is over, you could do a family tree for me?”

“Hmm?”

“Sorry.” She glanced back at him, waved a hand. “Mind’s wandering.”

“It’s okay, you’ve got a lot on it.” He put down his notebook, focused his attention on her. “Sure I can do that. You give me the basics you know—father’s full name, date and place of birth, your mother’s, and we’re off and running.”

“I’d really like that. It’d be interesting. Harper and I cross a couple generations back, sort of over to the side. Is he awful mad at me?”

“No, honey. Why would he be?”

“He was upset. He wanted to scoop me and Lily right up and haul us to Stella’s. I wouldn’t go. I can’t.”

Mitch doodled on a pad. “If I could’ve gotten Roz out of this house a few months ago, I’d have done it—even if it had taken dynamite.”

“Did you fight about it?”

“Not really.” Amusement danced in his eyes. “But then I’m older, wiser, and more in tune with the limitations a man faces when dealing with a stubborn woman.”

“Am I wrong?”

“That’s not for me to say.”

“It is if I’m asking you.”

“Rock and hard place, kid. That’s where you’ve shoved me.” He pushed back, took off his glasses. “I understand exactly how Harper feels and why, and he’s not wrong. I respect how you feel and why, and you’re not wrong either. How’s that?”

She managed a wry smile. “Smart—and no help at all.”

“Just another benefit of that older and wiser phase of life. But I’m going to add one thing as a potentially over-protective male. I don’t think you should spend a lot of time alone.”

“Good thing I like people.” When his cell phone rang, she rose. “I’ll go on, let you get that.”

Because she’d seen Harper outside, she went out the side door. She hoped Stella wouldn’t mind a little more time on Lily patrol. She wandered the path toward where he worked in the cutting garden.

Summer still had her world in its sweaty clutches, but the heat was strong and vital. Real. She’d take all the reality she could get. Mammoth blue balls of hydrangeas weighed down the bushes, daylilies speared up with their elegant cheer, and passionflowers twined their arbor in bursts of purple.

The air was thick with fragrance and birdsong, and through it rode the frantic wings of butterflies.

Around the curve Harper stood, legs spread, body slightly bent as his quick, skilled fingers twisted off deadheads, then dropped them in a bag knotted to his belt. At his feet was a small, shallow basket where daisies and snapdragons, larkspur and cosmos already lay.

It was, somehow, so sweepingly romantic—the man, the evening, the sea of flowers—that her heart floated up to her throat and ached there.

A hummingbird, a sapphire and emerald whir, arrowed past him to hover over the feathery cup of a deep red blossom of monarda and drink.

She saw him pause to watch it, going still with his hand on a stem and his other holding a seed head. And she wished she could paint. All those vivid colors of late summer, bold and strong, and the man so still, so patient, stopping his work to share his flowers with a bird.

Love saturated her.

The bird flew off, a small, electric jewel. He watched it, as she watched him.

“Harper.”

“The hummingbirds like the bee balm,” he said, then took his sheers and clipped a monarda. “But there’s enough for all of us. It’s a good spreader.”

“Harper,” she said again and walked up to slide her arms around him, press her cheek to his back. “I know you’re worried, and I won’t ask you not to be. But please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not. I came out here to cool off. It usually works. I’m down to irritated and worried.”

“I was set to come out here, argue with you.” She rubbed her cheek over his shirt. She could smell soap and sweat, both healthy and male. “Then I saw you, and I just don’t want to argue. I just don’t want to fight. I can’t do what you want when everything inside me pulls the other way. Even if it’s wrong, I can’t.”

“I don’t have any choice about that.” He clipped more flowers for the basket, deadheaded others. “And you don’t have any say about this. I’m moving in. I’d rather you and Lily shift over to my place, but it makes more sense for me to move into your room for now since there are two of you and one of me. When this is over, we’ll reevaluate.”

“Reevaluate.”

“That’s right.” He’d yet to look at her, really look, and now moved off a few paces to cut more blooms. “It’s a little hard to figure out where we’re going, what we’re doing under the circumstances.”

“So you figure we’ll live together, under the circumstances, and when those circumstances change, we’ll take another look at the picture.”

“That’s right.”

Maybe she did feel like arguing. “Ever heard of asking?”

“Heard of it. Not doing it. At the nursery, you work with Stella, Mama, or me, at all times.”

“Who suddenly made you the boss of me?”

With steady hands, unerring eye, he just kept working. “One of us will drive back and forth with you.”

“One of you coming with me every time I have to pee?”

“If necessary. You’ve got your mind set on staying, those are the terms.”

The hummingbird whizzed back, but this time she wasn’t caught by its charm. “Terms? Somebody die and make you king? Listen, Harper—”

“No. This is how it’s going to be. You’re determined to stay, see this through. I’m just as determined you’ll be looked after. I love you, so that’s the end of it.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again, and took a calming breath. “If you’d said that—the I love you part—right off, I might’ve been more open to discussion.”

“There is no discussion.”

Her eyes narrowed. He’d yet to stop what he was doing and face her fully. “You sure can be a hard-ass when you put your mind to it.”

“This didn’t take much effort.” He reached down, gathered the flowers in the basket, tucking their stems into a casual bouquet. Now he turned, and those long brown eyes met hers. “Here.”

She took them, frowned at him over them. “Did you cut these for me?”

The slow, lazy smile moved over his face. “Who else?”

She blew out a breath. He’d added nicotiana to the bouquet, and when she inhaled, she drew in its rich perfume. “It’s exasperating, I swear, how you can be pushy one minute and sweet the next. They’re really pretty.”

“So are you.”

“You know, another man might’ve started off with the flowers, the flattery, and the I-love-yous to soften me up for the rest. But you go at it ass-backwards.”

His gaze stayed on hers, steady. “I wasn’t worried about softening you up.”

“I get that. You’re not waiting for me to say, all right, Harper, we’ll do this your way. You’re just going to make sure I do.”

“See how quick you catch on?”

She had to laugh, and clutching the flowers in one hand gave in and linked her arms around his neck. “In case you’re interested, I’m glad you’re going to be staying with me. Next time I have my spine tingled, I’d as soon you be there.”

“I will be.”

“If you’ve got more work to do out here—”

She broke off when Logan strode down the path. “Sorry. Something’s up,” he said. “Better come on back in.”

HAYLEY FELT THE excitement, like a hum in the air when they stepped back into the library. She took a quick scan first, saw Lily playing cars with Gavin and Luke on the floor by the fireplace David had filled with flowers for the summer months.

Spotting her mother, Lily began to jabber and interrupted her game to come over and show off her dump truck. But the minute Hayley lifted her, Lily stretched out her arms for Harper.

“Everybody’s second choice when you’re around,” Hayley commented as she passed her over.

“She understands I know the fine points of Fisher-Price. It’s all right,” he added. “I’ve got her. What’s up?” he asked his mother.

“I’m going to let Mitch explain. Ah, David, we can always count on you.”

He wheeled in a cart with cold drinks, and finger food for the kids. “Gotta keep body and soul together.” He winked at the boys. “Especially around this house.”

“Y’all get what you want,” Roz ordered. “And let’s get settled.”

While the wine looked tempting, Hayley opted for the iced tea. Her stomach wasn’t quite a hundred percent yet. “Thanks for looking out for my girl,” she said to Stella.

“You know I love it. It always amazes me how well the boys play with her.” Stella brushed a hand down Hayley’s arm. “How’re you feeling?”

“A little off yet, but okay. You know what this is about?”

“Not even a glimmer. Go on and sit. You look worn out.”

As she did, Hayley grinned. “You’re getting a little southern in your accent. Yankee southern, but it’s starting to creep in. Kinda cute.”

“Must come from being outnumbered.” Because she was concerned with how pale Hayley looked still, she sat on the arm of the chair.

“How long you going to keep us dangling?” Logan complained, and Mitch stood in front of the library table.

Like a teacher, Hayley thought. Sometimes she forgot he’d been one.

“Y’all know I’ve been in contact for several months with a descendant of the housekeeper who worked here during Reginald and Beatrice Harper’s time.”

“The Boston lawyer,” Harper said and sat on the floor with Lily and her truck.

Mitch nodded. “Her interest has been piqued, and the more she’s looked for information, the more people she’s spoken with, the more invested she’s become.”

“Added to that Mitch has been doing a genealogy for her—gratis,” Roz added.

“Tit for tat,” he said. “And we needed some of the information anyway. Up till now she hasn’t been able to find a great deal that applied to us. But today, she got a hit.”

“You’re killing us here,” Stella commented.

“A letter, written by the housekeeper in question. Roni—Veronica, my contact, found a box full of letters in the attic of one of her great-aunts. It’s considerable to sort through, to read through. But today, she found one written by Mary Havers to a cousin. The letter was dated January 12, 1893.”

“A few months after the baby was born,” Hayley added.

“That’s right. Most of the letter deals with family business, or the sort of casual conversational observations that you’d expect—particularly in an era when people still wrote conversational letters. But in the body of the letter . . .” He held up papers. “She faxed me copies. I’m going to read the pertinent parts.”

“Mom!” Luke’s aggrieved voice wailed out. “Gavin’s looking at me with the face.”

“Gavin, not now. I mean it. Sorry,” Stella apologized. She took a deep breath and determined to ignore the whispered argument from behind her. “Keep going.”

“Just hold on one minute.” Logan rose, walked over to crouch and have a conversation with the boys. There was a cheer, then they scrambled up.

“We’re going to take Lily out to play,” Gavin announced, and puffed out his chest. “Come on Lily. Wanna go outside?”

Clutching her truck, she deserted Harper, waved bye-bye, and took Gavin’s hand. Logan closed the door behind them. “We’re going out for ice cream later,” he said to Stella as he walked back to his seat.

“Bribery. Good thinking. Sorry, Mitch.”

“No problem. This was written to Mary Havers’s cousin, Lucille.”

Leaning back on the library table, Mitch adjusted his glasses, and read.

“ ‘I should not be writing of this, but I am so troubled in my heart and in my mind. I wrote to you last summer of the birth of my employers’ baby boy. He is a beautiful child, Master Reginald, with such a sweet nature. The nurse Mister Harper hired is very competent and seems both gentle with him and quite attached. To my knowledge, the mistress has never entered the nursery. The nurse reports to Mister Harper, and only Mister Harper. Belowstairs Alice, the nurse, tends to chatter, as girls often do. More than once I have heard her comment that the mistress never sees the child, has never held him, has never asked of his welfare.’ ”

“Cold bitch,” Roz said quietly. “I’m glad she’s not a blood ancestor. I’d rather have crazy than cruel.” Then she lifted a hand. “Sorry, Mitchell. I shouldn’t interrupt.”

“It’s okay. I’ve already read this through a couple times, and tend to agree with you. Mary Havers continues,” he said.

“ ‘It is not my place to criticize, of course. However, it would seem unnatural that a mother show no interest in her child, particularly the son who was so desired in this house. It cannot be said that the mistress is a warm woman, or naturally maternal, yet with her girls she is somewhat involved in their daily activities. I cannot count the number of nurses and governesses who have come and gone over the last few years. Mrs. Harper is very particular. Yet, she has never once given Alice instructions on what she expects regarding Master Reginald.

“ ‘I tell you this, Lucy, because while we both know that often those abovestairs take little interest in the details of the household, unless there is an inconvenience, I suspect there is something troubling in this matter, and I must tell someone my thoughts, my fears.’ ”

“She knew something wasn’t right,” Hayley interrupted. “Sorry,” she added with a glance around the room. “But you can hear it, even in what she doesn’t say.”

“She’s fond of the baby, too.” Stella turned her wineglass around and around in her hands. “Concerned for him. You can hear that, too. Go on, Mitch.”

“She writes, ‘While I told you of the baby’s birth, I did not mention in previous correspondence that there was no sign in the months before that Mrs. Harper was expecting. Her activities, her appearance remained as ever. We who serve are privy to the intimate details of a household and those who live in it. It is unavoidable. There was no preparation for this child. No talk of nursemaids, of layettes, there was no lying-in for Mrs. Harper, no visits from the doctor. The baby was simply here one morning, as if, indeed, the stork had delivered him. While there was some talk belowstairs, I did not allow it to continue, at least in my presence. It is not our place to question such matters.

“ ‘Yet, Lucille, she has been so separate from this child it breaks the heart. So, yes, I have wondered. There can be little doubt who fathered the boy as he is the image of Mister Harper. His maternity, however, was another matter, at least in my mind.’ ”

“So they knew.” Harper turned to his mother. “She knew, this Havers, and the household knew. And nothing was done.”

“What could they do?” Hayley asked, and her voice was thick with emotion. “They were servants, employees. Even if they’d made noise about it, who would listen? They’d have been fired and kicked out, and nothing would have changed here.”

“You’re right.” Mitch sipped from his glass of mineral water. “Nothing would have changed. Nothing did. She wrote more.”

He set down his glass, turned the next page. “ ‘Earlier today a woman came to Harper House. So pale, so thin was she, and in her eyes, Lucy, was something not only desperate but not quite sane. Danby—’ That was the butler at the time,” Mitch explained. “ ‘Danby mistook her for someone looking for employment, but she pushed into the house by the front door, something wild in her. She claimed to have come for the baby, for her baby. For her son she called James. She said she heard him crying for her. Even if the child had cried, no one could hear in the entrance hall as he was tucked up in the nursery. I could not turn her away, could not wrest her away as she ran wildly up the stairs, calling for her son. I do not know what I might have done, but the mistress appeared and bade me show the woman up to her sitting room. This poor creature trembled as I led her in. The mistress would allow me to bring no refreshment. I should not have done what I did next, what I have never done in all my years of employment. I listened at the door.’ ”

“So she did come here.” There was pity in Stella’s voice as she laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “She did come for her baby. Poor Amelia.”

“ ‘I heard the cruel things the mistress said to this unfortunate woman,’ ” Mitch continued. “ ‘I heard the cold things she said about the child. Wishing him dead, Lucy, God’s pity, wishing him and this desperate woman dead even as she, who called herself Amelia Connor, asked to have the child returned to her. She was refused. She was threatened. She was dismissed. I know now that the master got this child, this son he craved, with this poor woman, his lightskirt, and took the baby from her to foist it on his wife, to raise the boy here as his heir. I understand that the doctor and the midwife who attended this woman were ordered to tell her the child, a girl child, was stillborn.

“ ‘I have known Mister Harper to be coldly determined in his business, in his private affairs. I have not seen affection between him and his wife, or from him for his daughters. Yet I would not have deemed him capable of such a monstrous act. I would not have believed his wife capable of aligning herself with him. Miss Connor, in her ill-fitting gray dress and shattered eyes, was ordered away, was threatened with the police should she ever come back, ever speak of what was spoken of in that room. I did my duty, Lucille, and showed her from the house. I watched her carriage drive away. I have not been easy in my mind since.

“ ‘I feel I should try to help her, but what can I do? Is it not my Christian duty to offer some assistance, or comfort at the very least, to this woman? Yet my duty to my employers, those who provide the roof over my head, the food I eat, the money which keeps me independent, is to remain silent. To remember my place.

“ ‘I will pray that I come to know what is right. I will pray for this young woman who came for the child she birthed, and was turned away.’ ”

Mitch set the pages down. And there was silence.

Tears slid down Hayley’s cheeks. Her head was lowered, as it had been during the last page of Mitch’s recital. Now she lifted it, and with her eyes shining with tears, smiled.

“But I came back.”