The Bride's House (45 page)

“But Grandfather loved you.”

“That’s the odd thing, isn’t it? He loved me so fiercely that he didn’t want me to ever leave him. I guess it didn’t seem to matter to him that I wasn’t his flesh and blood. It was enough to know I was my mother’s. You should know that is possible.” She held Susan’s eyes for a long time.

“Are you saying I should marry Joe anyway, and he’ll love the baby?” Her grandfather might have managed that, but Joe Bullock? It didn’t happen twice in one family.

“No, I’m just telling you how it happened with my mother and me.”

Susan thought a moment. “How did Grandfather get the letter? Wasn’t it ever mailed?”

Pearl shook her head. “No, you’ll read about that in a minute. I wish I could have asked Aunt Lidie, but of course, she died before Papa did, before I found all this.”

Susan reached across the desk for her mother’s hand, and the two sat silently for a moment, before Pearl said, “There’s one more letter for you to read.” She poured coffee into Susan’s cup. “I’m going for a walk, but first I want to tell you something. Your father and I were secretly engaged when I was thirty. When your grandfather found out, he threatened to disinherit me, and your father asked to be released from the engagement, because he couldn’t support me. He was afraid we’d live in poverty, and he said he wouldn’t do that to me. I believed him, but later I found a receipt for a fifty-thousand-dollar loan Papa had given him—that’s how I learned about this box; Papa left it open so that I’d come across the receipt. For years, I thought Frank had been bought off. But then he came back and said he had used the money to make enough to meet Papa’s conditions for marriage. It took nearly twenty years.”

Pearl sat silently for a moment, and Susan watched her, hoping she would continue. But she didn’t. Instead, Pearl stood. “I believe I’ll walk down to the park. There is one more letter, one that Aunt Lidie wrote to Papa. You can read it while I’m gone. All of this”—she swept her hand across the papers on the desk—“might help you make a decision. That’s why I opened the box. That’s why I showed you these things now.”

Susan watched her mother put on a coat and a scarf, then go out, watched through the curtains as Pearl stepped onto the dirt street and walked quickly in the direction of the park. She turned to the envelope Pearl had left on the desk. It was addressed to Charles Dumas, and when Susan opened it, a cablegram fell out: “
PACKAGE ARRIVED SAFE
.
ALL WELL
.
LT
.” That doesn’t explain anything, Susan thought.

She opened the last letter, written in Aunt Lidie’s cramped hand and dated July 15, 1913, and read it slowly so that every word was clear.

Dear Charlie Dumas,

I guess you understood my wire yesterday that Pearl was delivered of a baby. Both mother and child are satisfactory. Pearl begun her labor at six in the evening and the baby was not born till half past six the next morning. The baby is a girl and weighed seven pounds, six ounces, and has fancy hair. Pearl held her in her arms and fought to keep her but she knew there was no choice but to give her up. I thought I’d tell her the baby died a little later, and that would ease her, but there’s already enough lies. The child—Pearl called her Faith, although who knows if the name will stay—went to a watchmaker and his wife who have no other children. I arranged things with them when we arrived, Pearl leaving the details to me. They seem to be good people and say they will raise her as their own. I paid them the amount you settled on, and they know they don’t expect more. You needn’t worry about blackmail, because we are staying here under false names, so they don’t know who Pearl is. I think they wanted the child for itself, not the money. It helps me to think so. Pearl does not know they were paid.

Charlie, it does not sit easy with me that we deceived Pearl. She believes me and her have pulled the wool over your eyes, and she’s made me promise a dozen times never to tell you why we took this trip. It would kill her to find out you know about her off-child. She thinks I wrote she had the influenza, and the doctor ordered bed rest, and that’s why we’re staying here such a long time. When I told you in Georgetown, I did not know what else to do. The poor girl was so upset I feared she’d throw herself in Clear Creek. You asked me when it happened, and I said I did not know. But now, I believe it must have been in Denver the day they visited the capitol. Maybe he took her back to his lodgings. I remember she was awful flustered that evening.

She does not ask about the baby, but she has always been one to keep her feelings to herself. She is all right in body, but she grieves bad. I don’t know if she yet pines for Mr. Curry. She doesn’t talk to me about him, except to ask one time if she should have informed him of her condition. I said she should not, although I am not so sure now. I ought to have told Mr. Curry myself, and it worries me plenty that I did not. I know you wouldn’t have liked it, would have fired me for it, but it bothers me. I could have given them the chance to be together, but I held my tongue. It wasn’t right that Mr. Curry didn’t have a say. It’s not good keeping secrets.

Like I say, I don’t know if I did the right thing telling you either. It brings to mind me giving you that letter Nealie wrote on her deathbed to Will Spaulding. I’ve turned it over in my mind all these years whether I ought to have mailed it to him. Maybe I should have read it first. But that’s done, and maybe it’s best you burned it. We have enough deceit now that I won’t worry about the past.

Lydia Travers

P.S. You can make your plans to join us now.

Susan sat back in her chair, her heart beating hard, her throat dry. Her mother had had an illegitimate baby, a child born twenty years before Susan. Like Susan, her mother had been pregnant and unmarried. She set the sheet of paper on the table and picked up her coffee cup, but her hand shook so that she returned it to the desk without drinking. She stood and went to the long front window, looking out, but she could not see her mother. How many times had Pearl stood in that very spot, staring at the same mountain, thinking about her first daughter? And then Susan thought about herself. What would she feel if she gave up a daughter? Would she ever get over it? How could she?

Agitated, Susan walked around the room, touching the spot where the strongbox had been hidden, depressing keys on the piano, then playing a chord with one hand, picking a withered leaf off a flower stalk that sat in a vase. She went to the window a second time, but Pearl had not returned. Abruptly, Susan grabbed her coat and went out. The sun had touched the snow on top of Sunrise Peak, but Susan didn’t notice the mountain as she walked into a wind that blew dirt and dead leaves down the street, until she reached the park and found Pearl huddled on the steps of the bandstand. Susan sat down beside her, and in a moment, Pearl reached out her hand and clutched Susan’s.

“How could you give her up, my
sister
—Faith?” Susan swallowed when she said the words.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you ever see her again?”

Pearl shook her head. Her scarf had come undone, and she retied it. “Your father didn’t know, of course, not then. I told him on our drive to Denver, just before we married. He hired a detective in Paris, but the home I’d gone to had been torn down, and there had been the war.”

“How awful, Mother.”

“The worst part was giving her up, then wondering all those years whether she was still alive. During the last war, I was afraid she’d fallen into the hands of the Nazis somehow or had starved. I guess we’ll never know.”

“I’m so sorry.” Susan put her arms around herself to keep out the cold wind. Then she gave a short laugh. “We’re a fine family of women, aren’t we, every one of us pregnant and not married.”

Pearl smiled. “I’d thought of that irony.” She stretched out her legs. “My mother married a man she didn’t love so that she could keep her baby. I gave mine up, and I’ve regretted it ever since. And I wasn’t fair to your father. I should have told him. I had you read those things so you’d know we understand, my mother and I. Maybe we can help you decide what to do.”

“The only choice I have is between giving up the baby and tricking Joe into marrying me, and both of them stink.”

“There’s another,” Pearl said.

Susan frowned at her mother.

“You could let Joe decide,” she said softly.

“You mean tell him and see if he still wants to marry me? Who would do that?”

“Your grandfather.”

“Well, Joe isn’t Charlie Dumas.”

“You’ll never know if you don’t tell him.”

“I can’t, Mother. I’d be too ashamed.”

Pearl stood then and drew her coat around her. “You have a few days to decide. It’s cold out here. I don’t want you to get chilled.” She held out her hand to Susan, and the two walked back toward the Bride’s House holding hands.

*   *   *

Susan refused to see Joe after that. When he phoned, Susan said she had the flu. He stopped by the house, but her mother told him Susan was in bed, which was true. She barely left her room, spending her days crying and looking into the mirror, wondering how she could have made such a mess of her life. Joe brought a bouquet of purple asters he’d picked in the mountains, but Susan still wouldn’t see him.

“You can’t hide forever,” Pearl told her daughter.

“I can’t face him.”

“You have to, Susan. It’s not right. You’re treating him shabbily. He deserves better. You haven’t much time now.”

Susan nodded slowly. “I know.” She was sitting in the dining room in her bathrobe, looking through the shutters at the gray day. Although it was still August, snow had fallen on the high peaks, and the wind that blew down from them brought a chill. The house was cold, and despite the heavy bathrobe, Susan couldn’t get warm. She nibbled at an apple, but she wasn’t hungry and put it down. As Susan sat there, miserable, trying to decide what to do, the doorbell rang, and Pearl answered it. “Yes, Joe, she’s up.” And in a second, Joe was standing in the doorway.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“About as lousy as I look.” Susan’s hair was uncombed, and her eyes were red.

“You don’t look that bad to me. I thought maybe fresh air would do you some good. Why don’t we go for a walk?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Getting out of the house would be the best thing for you, Susan,” Pearl said. “You get dressed, and I’ll entertain Joe for a few minutes.” Susan shot her mother an angry look, but Pearl insisted. “Go on.”

Her mother was right, Susan thought. She might as well get it over with. So she went upstairs and washed her face and combed her hair, then put on a heavy white wool sweater and jeans. The jeans were already tight.

“You look even better,” Joe said, when Susan returned. He took her hand, and they went out onto the porch and down the steps, Pearl watching from the doorway. They didn’t talk as they made their way down Taos Street and into the park. Susan sat down on the steps of the bandstand, while Joe leaned on a rail beside her. “I’ve been doing some thinking,” he began, and Susan wondered if he knew somehow, if
he
would be the one to break their engagement. She was relieved. He’d say he’d changed his mind, and she wouldn’t have to tell him about the baby, and she would be gracious, saying she understood.

She closed her eyes and waited, and when he didn’t continue, she asked, “About what?”

“Getting married.” Susan took a deep breath, but before she could reply, Joe continued. “I’ve been wondering why we should wait until Christmas. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not have a big wedding. Heck, I’d elope, but you probably wouldn’t like that. So I was thinking we could get married at your house when your father gets here next week, and then we could go to California while I finish my senior year. What do you think?”

Susan didn’t answer. She stared across the dead grass in the park. A few aspen leaves had turned yellow and had blown into the corners of the bandstand. It could work, she thought. She wasn’t that far along, and Joe might wonder, but there were plenty of babies born at seven months, and he’d never know for sure that the child wasn’t his. Joe and Peter resembled each other, so the baby might look like Joe. Even if Joe found out later, he’d have to accept the child. He couldn’t divorce her, because a divorced politician had no future. She weighed all that in her mind, and then she turned to Joe. “I can’t.”

Joe looked crestfallen. “You don’t want to marry me.” It was a statement instead of a question. He turned away, sadness on his face.

She wasn’t being fair, Susan thought. It wasn’t right to let him think she didn’t want him, and so she said, “I can’t marry you because I’m pregnant with Peter Fanshaw’s baby.”

At first Joe just stared out across the rooftops to Sunrise Peak, and then he turned to her and said slowly, “And you can’t marry him because he’s dead.”

Had she let him know that Peter had been killed? Susan couldn’t remember. He’d probably read her mother’s column. Everybody had.