Cheyenne Captive (38 page)

The maid needed no further urging to seek out Priscilla who would be, of course, up in her room. Summer knew Maureen O‘Malley had come over in the Great Famine of 1845 when the Irish potato crop failed. A million people starved to death during that time. Anyone who could scrape up the money left for America. Mr. O’Malley had died on the trip over of typhus and Priscilla Van Schuyler had found the hungry widow roaming the docks aimlessly, trying desperately to find work when no one would hire the Irish.

Summer trudged up the stairway behind the puffing maid and went down the hall. Thinking about going in to see her mother, she hesitated, then went on to her own room. She needed time to prepare herself to face all this again. Summer was glad David had been perceptive enough not to put her through the ordeal of having all the servants lined up to greet her.

After Flannigan carried her trunks into the bedroom, she quickly closed the door against the world and thought how much she was becoming like her mother.

Summer looked about the room, and realized nothing had been changed or moved.
A million years ago, I was a silly, immature happy girl in this room she thought, and now I am a very mature and sad woman.

Her room faced south and was the only cheery bedroom in the house since it got the winter sun when it shone through the turret windows onto the cushioned window seats. Absently, she walked over and looked out at the steady downpour, remembering how many, many hours she had curled up and read books on that window seat since there wasn’t much else to do in this sad, lonely house.

The room colors were her favorites, pale yellow and cornflower blue. Even the faint, sweet scent of her perfume, lily of the valley, still hung on the still air. Absently, she ran her hand over the delicate satinwood French bed. On the wall was a large print of Jenny Lind and Summer smiled now in pleasure as she remembered the concert she had attended. Tickets had been all sold out, of course, but Silas Van Schuyler had gotten tickets anyway.

A fire blazed in the ornate fireplace and she pulled off the damp dress and spread it over a chair to dry. Then she drew up a wingback chair and sat down, enjoying the warmth after the cold carriage ride. The latest copy of
Godey’s Lady’s Book
lay on the table nearby and she thumbed through it listlessly. Hoops were going to get wider and skirts more full. She didn’t care about such silliness or fashion. Boston was always behind in styles and she’d only just purchased her first hoop a few months before she left. The thing probably still hung in the closet.

She stared into the flames and remembered another fire, another time. And in the flickering blaze, she saw a man’s bronzed, gentle face.
Yes, a million years ago, a vain, silly schoolgirl had run away on a stagecoach and a fierce, passionate man had awakened her to womanhood. She could never go back to what she had been, never be the same again.
Tears blurred her eyes and the image of the man in the flames and she leaned back and closed them. When she opened them, Mrs. O’Malley knocked stubbornly on the door.

“Are ye all right. Lamb? It’s straight up six o’clock and you know how your father is about dinner.”

“I’ll be right down.” She jumped to her feet, jerked a green cotton dress from the closet, and was still buttoning it as she rushed toward the stairs. Six o’clock meant dinner in the formal dining room day in and day out, month after month, year after year. No one ever questioned it because it was one of Father’s inflexible rules. It was one small thing he used to rule with an iron fist. Several times, when she was small, she had come to the table late and been sent back up the stairs without dinner as punishment. She had forgotten how unhappy she had been in this dismal house, had always been. The big grandfather clock in the hall struck six times and the deep chimes echoed through the house.

They were all already seated as she rushed into the large, burgundy dining room.

Her mother stood up at her end of the table a little unsteadily. “Summer, my dear! I’m so glad you’re home!” She put her arms around Summer’s neck and kissed her with warmth and Summer hugged her. She had forgotten how thin and vulnerable Priscilla always looked as her gaze swept over the expensive rose-colored dress. Although in many ways she was a carbon copy of her daughter, Priscilla had a little gray among the blond strands now and the dark shadows under her eyes seemed to have deepened in the months Summer had been gone.

David smiled encouragement at Summer as she walked to the opposite end of the ornate mahogany table. Had she never noticed before how her parents faced each other like adversaries the length of the long table?

“Hello, Father.” She gave the lean, hawklike man a quick peck on the cheek without any real warmth as he half stood, frowning at her with ice blue eyes. His sharp, prominent nose and the way his thin hands grasped the arms of his chair reminded her of a bird of prey.

“Hello, my dear,” he said. “I’m surprised you are late to dinner. You remember the rule: six o’clock straight up, you know.”

“Sorry.” Summer gritted her teeth. She had been lost for weeks and he could only scold her for being late for dinner. Nothing had really changed while she was gone.

She smiled down at Angela and tried to hug the child who stared back at her with no give to her stiff little shoulders at all. Summer noticed a black furry tail sticking out from under Angela’s chair but said nothing but “My! How you’ve grown! You’re becoming such a beauty, Angela.”
She was becoming a beauty, Summer thought, but there was something missing in her that other little girls seemed to have. Warmth? A capacity for love?

The child fixed a baleful, icy gaze on her. “Tell me about the Indians.”

“Angela!” David and Mother said in unison, looking both pained and annoyed.

“Now, now!” Father boomed, smiling at his favorite as Summer stumbled to her chair in confusion. “It’s just natural curiosity. No need to scold the child!”

Summer sat down in her chair, looking at the reflection the large oil chandelier cast on the sparkling, crystal wine goblets that, in turn, created little pinpoints of light on the deep burgundy walls.

“Well, now.” Mother put her glass down with an unsteady hand and Evans sighed disapprovingly as he refilled it with red wine. “Isn’t it wonderful that we’re all here together with the holidays so close and all?”

“It’s delightful,” David agreed too heartily as the butler brought the heavy silver server of roast lamb to the head of the table and Father served himself.

“Oh, it’s going to be a great holiday!” Summer put in desperately as she picked up the fine silver fork, placed the imported damask napkin in her lap. She caught David’s eyes and they confirmed what she had already guessed. Mother was drinking more than usual these days.

Priscilla had already drained her glass and held it up. The stuffy British butler paused with the decanter and looked toward Father who shook his head and scowled. “You’ve already had enough, my dear,” he said. “Let’s not play the fool tonight, shall we not?”

Priscilla reddened and Angela laughed. Summer looked at the tall, lean man at the end of the table and recalled how seldom he smiled. Did he love any of them except Angela? Had he ever loved Mother or had he always treated her so coldly? She looked into the smug, smiling face of her younger sister and had an almost terrible urge to reach across the table and give her a good shaking.

Summer took a bite of the lamb and mint jelly. It was tasty, of course, but her memory went to deer meat roasted simply over a small fire pit. It suddenly dawned on her that Father was addressing her.

She looked into his ice blue eyes. “I’m sorry, sir, I didn’t hear you.”

“You’re getting as bad as your mother.” He frowned as he peered at her. “I merely asked after the health of your uncle Jack.”

“Oh, he’s fine. He sends his regards.” It was an effort to keep from smiling at the memory of the dour man standing open-mouthed, staring after the departing stagecoach. She wouldn’t tell Father about that, of course. “Do tell me about Harvard, David,” she stammered, ducking her head so she could avoid the glare of the cold eyes.

“David’s doing fine at school,” Silas Van Schuyler said crisply as if he dared anyone to doubt it.

“Well, as a matter of fact, sir,” David began hesitantly. He paused with his fork halfway to his lips and Summer felt dreadfully sorry for him.

“Yes?” It wasn’t a question, it was a dare.

“As a matter of fact,” David rushed on manfully, “I’ve been thinking of another field rather than business.”

“Nonsense!” Father paused in gulping his meat and Summer thought again how much like a hawk he looked. “You’ll need all those commerce classes to take over your rightful place in my businesses.”

David looked a little desperate now and Summer saw Mother give him just the slightest shake of her head but her brother plunged in despite the warning. “I don’t think I’m cut out for business!”

Angela smirked. The brat was really enjoying this, Summer thought miserably.

“Ridiculous!” Silas dismissed the idea. “Now if you’re wanting to ship out on one of our vessels for a while, get to know the business from the ground up, I couldn’t approve more! Did it myself as a youngster. Different business then, of course.” He leaned back in his chair. “My grandfather built his fleet of ships on slavery and my father enlarged it on the illegal profits of
blackbirding.’”

“What’s ‘blackbirding’?” Angela’s pale eyes gleamed with interest as she slipped another bite off her plate to the cat under her chair.

“Please, Silas!” Priscilla protested weakly. “I’m not sure this is suitable conversation for the child!”

Father grinned almost maliciously at Mother before he turned back to the curious child. “A ‘blackbirder’ was someone who ran slaves past the blockade after the idiot government decided no more blacks could be imported into this country. My great-grandfather started out working someone else’s ship up in New York harbor where my family landed after they came from Holland. I miss the fun I had as a youngster of helping my father outwit those ships that lurked out there, trying to catch us bringing the slaves in.”

The child smiled at the idea. “Are we like pirates?”

“Not exactly.” Father fairly beamed at her as he pushed his plate back. “Although a few of the jealous have been known to call me a ‘robber baron.’”

“What did you do with the slaves when you got them here, Papa?”

“Sold them, of course, Sweetie, and made good profits doing it. Only one time we had to take a loss. A U.S. frigate moved in on us sudden-like and we couldn’t be caught with the evidence, so we threw them all overboard!”

Angela laughed with delight. “Didn’t they swim away?”

“No, of course not!” He leaned back and smiled faintly at the memory. “Those leg chains made them sink like rocks!”

Summer saw Mother’s face pale and she herself tried to blot out the image the story brought to mind.

“Silas,” Priscilla said again, rather weakly. “I do wish you wouldn’t tell those stories! She might repeat them to the girls at school.”

“I am damned tired of you and your blue-blooded, snobby ways!” Father roared, throwing his napkin down across his plate. “I’m not ashamed of how my family made its money! Look at that prissy cousin of yours, Elizabeth Shaw! They may be the cream of Boston society and own half the textile mills in the state, but I happen to know Robert Shaw’s grandfather was a rag picker in the slums of London!”

“Sir,” David said manfully. “I wish you wouldn’t speak that way to Mother.”

Summer’s hands trembled as she watched Father turn his angry attention to her twin. “And I wish your blue-blooded mother would quit sticking her mouth in where it doesn’t concern her. She married me for my money, now how dare she get squeamish about how it was made!” His face was dark as thunder as he looked to the delicate blond woman at the other end of the table. “I’ll run the business, my dear, you look to your drinking! You seem to do that well enough!”

Priscilla staggered to her feet, overturning her chair in doing so. With a whimper, she ran from the room.

Angela laughed. “Papa’s right! She drinks too much!” she said to Summer.

Gritting her teeth, Summer fought the urge to reach across and grab the child. “Angela, you are a monster, and, Father, you are a rotten bastard!”

Then she, too, raced up to her room and slammed the door protectively behind her. Rain beat against the windows as she flopped down in front of the fire and saw the image in the flames.

“Oh, my darling!” she whispered. “I can’t live in this unhappy house! I’m not even sure I can go on at all! What am I to do?” But no answer came to her and finally weariness overcame her and she dropped off to sleep.

The rain had turned to snow at dawn. Summer awakened with a start as Bridget, the cook, knocked timidly, then entered with a breakfast tray.

“Good to have you home, Miss Summer.” Bridget’s nose wiggled when she talked and Summer thought of a small mouse.

“I’m glad to be home, Bridget,” she lied as she accepted the tray and took a gulp of the dark, rich cocoa. Hungrily, she reached for the salted kippers and hot, buttered muffins complete with port wine jelly.