Beside Two Rivers (26 page)

A burst of understanding came to Darcy, and she pondered her grandmother’s words. All these years she had felt unwanted, unloved, and forgotten. But now she realized that her father loved her so much, he left her with the Breeses. She had a roof over her head, food to eat, and a family. Although the world beyond River Run fascinated her, Hayward had done the right thing in leaving her behind. But that he ran from his troubles by losing himself in the backwoods worried her.

She picked up her grandmother’s hands, cupping hers around the crooked fingers. They were cold. “I am sorry he hurt you by leaving the way he did. I’m sure he never meant to.”

“His love for the place you call River Run was stronger than his attachment to me,” Madeline said. “Do you care about that place?”

Drawn back to the land and river she loved, Darcy felt a yearning so deep within her soul, a summons to return, that a long, deep breath slipped from her lips. Would Ethan go with her, back to the place where they first fell in love?

“I care as if it were my life,” she answered.

Madeline laid her hand on Darcy’s shoulder. “Then you must go back to the place you love most, and remember me as you saw me—alive, and happy to have seen you, for I have seen my lost son in your eyes. Havendale is not for you. It is depressing, full of ill, and Langbourne is its master.”

23

Strong gusts of wind shook Darcy awake, rattling the windows, causing the walls of her room to shudder, and hurling across Havendale like the waves of a boiling sea. She sat up in bed. Goosebumps bristled over her skin, and she glanced about the room. It had been a dream, but so real.

She began to remember—how her palm pressed against window glass, how the frost outlined her fingers, the tree with its heavy branches casting long shadows over patches of stiff brown grass, a silent sentinel on a winter’s night. Her swing glided back and forth on thick ropes encrusted with ice. Darkness and moonlight. A woman’s figure crossing the yard. Her cloak fanning out in the wind, flying forward around her legs. Gusts blew back her hood. Flaming red hair, illuminated like tongues of fire by the flame that flickered in a lantern near a hitching post.

She remembered creeping to the door in a pair of scratchy woolen stockings. Voices were outside in the hallway. Footsteps clattered up the staircase. Shadows moved on the wall. Muddy footprints marred the polished floor. Two figures disappeared into a room at the end of a passage. A shaft of candlelight spread out across the Turkish runner. She walked toward it.

Inching around the door, she saw her mother, her ebony hair, rich as the night sky, cascading past lean shoulders. Long strands covered her face as she grimaced in pain. Brilliant white teeth clenched, her eyes shut tight, her hands tearing at the bed sheets. That night, fear rose in Darcy and she remembered how she inched back after covering her ears to block out her mother’s cries. And there was another woman who stood by, holding Eliza’s hand, with a white mobcap over her hair.

A mist filled Darcy’s eyes, and when she blinked them back she saw an infant, wet and coated, squirming in the gentle arms of the cloaked woman. Her name was Sarah—the woman who bent down to her, her face like an angel’s. Darcy stepped down the hallway toward the staircase. Moonlight streamed through a side window and spread over the floor. Darcy called to Sarah and waited.

“Little miss. You should be abed,” Sarah scolded. “Is it the wind? Has it frightened
you?”

“I’m not scared.”

She gazed up at the bundle in Sarah’s arms. “Can I see?”

Sarah moved the blanket aside. Damp soft curls clung to the baby’s head and a mew passed through the bow mouth. “She’s pretty, isn’t she? Skin the color of cream and cheeks rosy as dawn.”

She remembered how bewildered the event had made her feel, how in her innocent way she had asked, “Is this Mama’s baby?”

How she could have forgotten the sad look in Sarah’s face she did not know, nor the reply to her question. “This is my babe,” Sarah had told her. “Her name is Ilene. You understand?”

The answer had confused Darcy. “Then where is Mama’s baby?”

Red spirals tumbled over Sarah’s shoulders. “You ask your mother when you are older. But she’ll tell you, she has no babe except you.”

In all these years, Darcy had not forgotten the little girl with the bubbly giggle and shining eyes. She had not understood why Ilene had left the world so young—why she had left her. She remembered Fiona and her motherly ways and Sarah’s kindness as well as the wistful gaze in her eyes. Her mother’s face she could not recall, only the flowing hair and a voice that soothed her when she was afraid.

Fully awake, her heart ached with the visions. She clutched the front of her nightdress and yearned for Ethan—longed for home where her memories were born. Unable to sleep, she rose and dressed. Second best, the olive-green linen flowed past her waist. She slipped on her stockings and shoes. Then she brushed her hair back so it flowed down to her waist.
He’ll come today—Ethan
.

She crossed the floor to her window and gazed out at the moon hanging behind drifting clouds. A few hours and the sun would rise. Then a frantic voice called to her out in the hallway and Mrs. Burke opened the door. “Dear me,” she huffed and puffed her cheeks in and out. “Come quick. ’Tis your grandmother.”

When Darcy hurried into Madeline’s room, it lay in darkness save for a little light from the vermillion coals in the grate. Darcy groped her way to her, her bare feet not making a sound along the old rug. Maxwell sat by the hearth and looked up. Madeline opened her eyes and a soft cry poured from her lips.

“Hayward. Oh, my son, Hayward.”

Darcy leaned over. “Grandmother. I am here. What is it?”

Madeline searched for Darcy’s hand. Once she found it she gripped it with what Darcy knew was all the strength she could muster. “I have seen him. I have seen Hayward.”

Troubled, Darcy touched Madeline’s cheek. “A dream, Grandmother. Papa is far away in America.”

“No. No. I saw him, I tell you. I saw him as real as I see you. He spoke to me, told me he was sorry for hurting me. He asked if I would forgive him.”

A chill passed through Darcy and she glanced at Mrs. Burke as she stood near the bed
wringing her hands in her robe. “Please bring a glass of port, Mrs. Burke.” And off the serving woman went.

“Darcy, please. You must believe me,” Madeline said.

“Tell me what happened. I am listening.”

“I was asleep, and the wind woke me. I looked over and saw the curtains at the terrace doors flutter, and then he stepped into the room. I did not know him at first and was so frightened I could not call out. He then said to me ‘Mother, it is I, Hayward.’ When he drew closer, I saw his face. It was Hayward. How could I forget my child’s eyes?”

“He told you his name?” Darcy’s hand trembled in her grandmother’s. From head to toe her body surged with both fear and elation. Could it be true? Could it really be him?

“He called me
Mother
, Darcy. Is that not enough for me to know? And his voice—it was the same, yet older. And yes, he said he was Hayward. As I beheld him, he lifted me gently by my shoulders and spoke. I scarce heard what he was saying, for I was so alarmed. I went to throw my arms about him, but when he heard Burke’s footsteps, he staggered back, and as she entered he slipped out the doors into the dark. He is ill, Darcy. What shall we do?”

“I shall find him.”

“How? Tell me. You cannot go out on the moors at night.”

“Do not worry.”

As if a seam in the clouds had split open, rain beat down on the house. Moments ago the moon had shone. Now a swiftmoving storm overtook it, and the room chilled with the wind flying through Madeline’s terrace doors. The curtains rose as if arms flung them to the ceiling. Darcy hurried to them, shut and latched the doors tight. But before she did, she peered out across the terrace and to the steps that led down to the lawn. Beyond it stood the stable. No one was in sight. But when she moved back, there on the floor were muddy footprints. Her heart swelled in her throat.

“Perhaps he is close by,” said Madeline, growing more desperate. She twisted the edge of her sheet between her aged hands. “He may have found shelter in the stable and is afraid to come back to the house for fear we will not believe him. And he knows what Langbourne would do to him if he did. That is why he came through to my room, and not the front door.”

Darcy moved back to the bedside. “But Langbourne is not here.”

Mrs. Burke returned with the glass of port. As she guided the glass into Madeline’s hand, she spoke calmly to her. “There, there. All shall be well.”

The port moistened Madeline’s lips. “I saw my son, Burke. You believe me, don’t you? Not William. No, it was Hayward.”

“Of course I believe you. Rest now.” And she drew the blankets up closer to Madeline’s chin. Darcy drew her aside and gave her a questioning look.

Mrs. Burke shook her head. “There was no one.”

“But the doors were still open when I came in, and there are muddy footprints on the floor. Go look.”

“The wind, Miss Darcy. The latch has never been too secure. And those prints could be made from the dust on the floor and the rain coming inside.”

Darcy looked back at the doors. She knew Mrs. Burke to be wrong. “Poor Grandmamma.”

“I hear you!” Madeline threw her hands to her face and broke into tears. “You both think I am mad. Or that I was dreaming.”

“A dream perhaps,” Mrs. Burke said. “But not mad.”

Darcy gathered the old woman in her arms to calm her. Madeline’s frail body trembled as if all the emotions of a lifetime had broken forth. She drew back from Darcy. “Go find him, Darcy. He cannot be far.”

Maxwell leapt up from his spot and with a growl scampered out the door. Darcy looked after him as he raced down the hallway to the staircase. Something drew him, alerted him to a presence.

She stepped out into the hallway and took up her candle. Worried that the man who could be her father had gone out into the storm, she hurried down the hallway to the staircase. Downstairs she hastened to don her cloak, slipped on her leather walking shoes, lit a tin lantern from the candlewick, and took from a hook on the wall a flintlock pistol in case she was wrong. With her heart pounding, she drew her hood over her hair, then lifted the bar over the door and pulled it open.

If it is true he is my father, God help me find him
. Rain and a hungry wind struck her as she walked out into the torrential night rain.

24

Ahead, Maxwell barked and darted forward. Darcy raised the lantern and watched the dog run to and fro. Frantic, he sniffed the ground, then pricked his sharp ears and growled without showing barred teeth. Darcy moved forward, her shoes sinking into the rainwater pooling in the grass. Rain pelted her face and dripped from her lashes.

Maxwell circled, then sprinted toward the stable, stopped, and barked. Darcy froze when a dark form moved near the door. He backed up, his knees buckled and his body shook violently. She held the lantern high to see his face, brown as the mud that splattered his worn boots. His hair lay matted against his head, dripping and soaked.

Darcy stared.
The man from Bentmoor
.

He raised his hand before his eyes against the glare of the lantern’s light.

“I will not hurt you,” Darcy said over the din of rain. “Are you Hayward Morgan?”

“I am. Please … I have come a long way.”

It could not be helped, the tears, the pain of seeing him again, of trying to remember. Her breath hurried as she gazed into her father’s troubled eyes. She hurried to him, took hold of his arm and guided him toward the house. “You are ill. Come inside.” He stiffened and hesitated. “Come. You cannot stay out here.”

Through mud and puddles, they reached the door. Mrs. Burke stopped short midway on the stairs, her face one of shock. “Lord, have mercy. She was right.”

“Mrs. Burke …” Darcy feared her father would collapse in her arms.

“Thank the Almighty, Miss Darcy. If he had wandered out on the moor in this weather, the Lord only knows what could have become of him, the poor soul.”

Darcy looked at the face of a man ravaged by the years. “He needs a warm fire, a bed, and medicine. We must take him to one of the rooms upstairs.”

Mrs. Burke’s feet tramped down the stairs as quick as they could carry her. She shut the door to the wind and rain, and helped Darcy bring Hayward up the staircase. So weak, the toe of his boots bumped against the edges of one step, then the next.

“We must take him to the east wing, Miss Darcy, on the uppermost floor.” Mrs. Burke slipped her arm beneath Hayward’s. “It is closed off. No one goes there. The farthest room would be best, in case Mr. Langbourne should return. He will not know Mr. Hayward is there as long as we keep him quiet.”

When they reached the upper floor, Madeline met them. She shivered in her nightclothes and cap. Her gray eyes glistened bright with tears as she beheld her prodigal son.

Darcy looked at her. “I have him, Grandmother. Do not be afraid. Mrs. Burke and I will take good care of him.”

With outstretched arms, Madeline stepped forward, and once she reached her son, she placed her hands around his face and lifted it. “Hayward, ’tis you.” She kissed his forehead, then his cheeks. “Oh, my son, my son.”