The Hungry Heart Fulfilled (The Hunger of the Heart Series Book 3) (21 page)

 

 

“And that’s why she
married Oran
Dillon? To
protect them?”

 

 

They all nodded.

 

 

“Aye, she would
have had more status
as a widow than a spinster, and would have been able to
protect the children
better," Joe explained.

 

 

"Plus, after she
had written
several times to your house and office for help, and not
received any reply,
she gave up hope of assistance from you, and still had to face
the prospect of
being an unwed mother.

 

 

"So Oran offered
her the
protection of his name for all the children and the unborn
baby. They were
married on the first of
November, and Oran died about an hour later.”

 

 

Dalton rubbed his
eyes in an attempt
to hold back the tears, and murmured, “I never got any of the
letters. How
could my father have let her pleas
for help go unheeded?”

 

 

“He didn’t, not
exactly,” the Bishop
said grimly. “Sissy,
you tell
him.”

 

 

“A man came that night that Joe fell ill,
to the hotel where
Mrs. Dillon and the children were staying, the place where I
used to work. It
was your father.  First
he threatened to arrest
her. I heard him
through the
door. But then
things seemed to
settle down, and he left.

 

 

"After he had gone,
Mrs. Dillon
was very upset, and said something about how she had sold her
soul to the
devil, and didn’t know what to do. She said that there had been some
sort of mistake. Then
she asked me to
look after the children for her, and I saw her running down to
the shore after
your father.

 

 

“Oh, I did see
another man, small,
very thin, silver hair and moustache, looking in the library
window while your
father was talking to Emer.
One of
my friends from the hotel that I met up with a few weeks ago
told me that he
had come looking for her the following day, but had been told
she had gone.”

 

 

“If I didn’t know
better I would
guess it had to be Reeves, my father’s dogsbody. But why would he be
looking for Emer?”
Dalton wondered
aloud. “Never
mind, tell me what
happened next, please.”

 

 

“Emer came to me
for help,” the
Bishop replied.  “We
had been
introduced by Father Moylan, who held her in great regard due
to all she had
done on the island as a nurse.

 

 

“Emer was
completely distraught, and
she told me it had all been a mistake. That your father had offered
her fifteen thousand
pounds, ten thousand
from his own account, and five thousand, ostensibly from you,
to pay Emer off
to never see you again so that your marriage with Madeleine
Lyndon could come
off without a hitch. The little note he gave her seemed to
indicate that it was
at your instigation that your father had gone to see her, and
the cheque with
your signature seemed to confirm the lie.

 

 

"But I could see it
was an ink
stamp, and from the little I knew of you, and what Emer had
told me you had
done for her on the ship, I had doubts of my own as to the
veracity of
Frederick’s story, and the purity of his motives.

 

 

“I asked Emer why
she had taken the
money. She said
she was so angry
that Frederick had refused to help the poor, and yet was
willing to hand over
so much money to someone he had called a mercenary whore right
to her face,
that she had taken the money as a joke. But by the time she ran down
the beach to return the
drafts, your father
was gone.”

 

 

The Bishop paused
to take a sip of
tea, and then continued,
“I
promised to keep the money safely for her, but urged her to
let some good come
out of the misunderstanding and hatred, and set up the
orphanage with it.

 

 

"Only the money
wasn’t yours,
it was mine. I
still have the
money your father gave her safely in the bank, earning
interest, which I hope
you will let the orphanage have.

 

 

"Here are the
cancelled drafts
for proof, which I obtained from your banker in case I should
ever have to
prove to you that Emer has never ever taken a penny from you
or your father,”
the Bishop revealed.

 

 

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

 

 

Dalton looked up at
the Bishop in
surprise.

 

 

"She never spent
any of the
money my father tried to bribe her with?"

 

 

"No. I could see
how scrupulous
she was, but I'm a practical man as well. I kept it safe for
her, and gave her
my own money instead. But the money would be a handy nestegg
for her and the
child's future no matter what she decided to do, if you
weren't prepared to
treat her decently."

 

 

“Damnation, I should have suspected
something was amiss, and
that my father was behind it all. The bank manger had told me
when I came home
for a few days in November that five thousand pounds had been
taken out of my
account, but I never even thought to query it. I was so upset
when my father
told me Emer was dead, nothing else mattered.”

 

 

“The money is in a
special account,
which I’ve set aside for you so that you can give the money
back to your father
any time you like. Emer
seemed to
think that she had to keep the promise forcibly extracted from
her by your father,
to never to see you again.
I
merely kept the money in the bank, earning considerable
interest, I might add,
so that if she decided she wished to go back on her word, she
could do it in
good faith.

 

 

"Emer has never
touched a penny
of your money, and of the five thousand of mine that she
spent, she managed to
make a huge return from the businesses she set up with it, she
ran the
orphanage efficiently, and will no doubt have a vastly
successful harvest this
year."

 

 

"That's Emer, all
right,"
Dalton said, his face shining with pride. "She can make the
best of even
the most difficult situations."

 

 

The Bishop nodded.
“On that cold
dark night in November, I took one look at Emer, and saw she
had been sent to
me for a purpose. She
has repaid
my investment in her tenfold, and above all, maintained her
pride and dignity
in the face of overwhelming odds. Never once has she ever let down
those she loved, not
even you, Dalton,
not even when she thought you had betrayed her.”

 

 

“But the orphanage
burnt down.  All
of Emer’s work has been wiped
out.  The
children are all
scattered, and Emer is crippled. Don’t tell me that had something to
do with my father
as well?” Dalton asked
in alarm.

 

 

“I’m afraid so,
though indirectly,”
Adrian admitted. “It
was Madeleine
Lyndon who set the fire, thinking that once Emer was dead, or
in prison for
arson, that you would gladly marry her. Pertwee had been driving her
carriage. He had probably put the idea into her
head by relating the
story of the kitchen fire on the
Pegasus.

 

 

"Madeleine emptied
the oil
lamps onto the porch and set fire to the house. But in her
haste to leave she
lost her monogrammed reticule, dropping it near the back porch
as she fled the
flames. I saw her running away from the house that night, and
so did Charlie,
Mrs. Jenkins and Sissy.

 

 

"And I must tell
you Dalton, as
long as we're getting the whole truth out in the open, that
you make a very
lucky escape not marrying Madeleine.”

 

 

Adrian told Dalton briefly of his past
history with
Madeleine Lyndon.

 

 

Dalton felt sick at
how badly
deceived he had been by her and his father.

 

 

“And Emer knew all
of this, and yet
never once did she say a word to me?” he said, shaking his
head in disbelief.

 

 

“She loved you,
Dalton. Emer
wanted to protect you, and she
wanted to be sure that you really did love her, and didn’t
simply feel sorry
for her, or obliged to protect her in some way,” Joe stated
bluntly.

 

 

“So what's happened
to her now, do
you think?” Dalton demanded angrily, hating himself for the
harm he had
inadvertently brought upon her.
"Where is she? And my son?"

 

 

“We think that you
father has
carried out his threat to arrest Emer for arson on his ship. I’ve
seen Pertwee,
who is living very
high off the hog indeed at his new house on the other side of
town, a veritable
mansion which the neighbours say he just took possession of
about a fortnight
ago.

 

 

"We have also
discovered that
your father re-applied to
serve as
a magistrate, though he has not done so for some time, and
spent the day in
court the day Emer disappeared.
It
doesn’t look good. We can’t find her in any prison anywhere,
and I'm afraid the
charge of arson is a capital one,” Adrian informed Dalton
quietly.

 

 

“You’re telling me
she’s been
hanged?” Dalton shouted, jumping to his feet.

 

 

The sandy-haired
doctor shook his
head quickly. “We don't think so. But we can’t be sure. We just
don’t know. At least we haven’t found a grave yet,
so that gives us some
hope."

 

 

"And at the time,
they arrested
Adrian’s housekeeper as well, and she died of a heart attack. I
think we can find
you father
indirectly responsible for that death at least,” the Bishop
observed.

 

 

“But what of the
baby? You still
haven’t told me where William
is? Even if my
father had brought
charges against Emer for arson, what right could he have to
take my son away?”

 

 

“You and Emer
aren’t married, so
officially he is William Dillon. Frederick could have claimed that
Emer was an unfit
mother. The man
who was paid to ferry Mrs. Everett
while she was still alive over to the burial grounds at Grosse
Ile to get rid
of her quietly is a regular river boat pilot, and he says that
he saw your
father on the docks with the baby,” Adrian revealed.

 

 

Dalton gaped. “My
God, he didn’t
send William to Grosse Ile, did he?”

 

 

“No, apparently he
gave her to an
old woman on a steamer bound for Toronto."

 

 

"
Gave
him to her?" he repeated, aghast.

 

 

"There are other
witnesses.  I
promise you,
Dalton, we're doing everything we can to find your son. We
will just have to
wait and hope that he turns up.”

 

 

“I must go see him!” Dalton stated
flatly.  “I’ll
wring his neck, but he will
tell me what he’s done with them.”

 

 

“No, Dalton, it
would only make
things worse,” Adrian argued.

 

 

“Make things
worse
? How can they be any worse?" Dalton
shouted, beside himself with fury. "The only
woman I have ever loved and our son have been stolen from me
by my treacherous father, and nearly killed by the woman I was once
engaged to!   How can things be worse than that!”

 

 

“You have problems
of your own,
Dalton, and now is not the time to lock horns with Frederick,”
the Bishop said
firmly.

 

 

Dalton looked
around at all of
Emer's friends. “You’re trying to tell me there's more bad
news?”

 

 

They all nodded
grimly.

 

 

“I hate to tell you
this, but you're
being sued for non-payment of debt,” Myrtle disclosed. “All the
drafts
that you wrote to
refurbish the fleet have not been honoured. Your father tricked you
into believing
you had
carte
blanche
, but some
of the businessmen and victuallers in Dublin will go bankrupt
if you don’t pay
up soon. You can
sue your father
for the money, but it could take months to get it all, even
assuming you win.”

 

 

“I still have fifty
thousand left in
my personal account,” Dalton calculated.

 

 

“The debts are far more, if you can
recall what you
requisitioned. Even if we all chipped into pay for the debts, we
would all be
completely penniless,” the Bishop warned.

 

 

“What of the
fifteen thousand pounds
from Emer?”

 

 

“Even with that,
and help from
Myrtle’s father, we will have problems. The new orphanage and fever
hospital building programme
will have to
halt immediately, I’m afraid, and we will have to continue our
present output
in the workshops just to get through the harvest. After that we
don’t know. Just pray the
weather stays fine
and we have a bumper crop this year,” Joe stated.

 

 

“I can’t let you do
this. You have
no reason to help me, to sacrifice so much on my behalf at the
expense of the
children,” Dalton protested.

 

 

“Emer would never
forgive us if we
let you go under, and it's the principle of the thing. You were
tricked,
Dalton. There's no reason
why you should suffer, any more than your creditors, just
because your trust in
Frederick was misplaced,” the Bishop said generously.

 

 

“If you're sure,
then the only thing
to do is calculate all the debts, see how much ready cash we
can come up with,
and give them each something. I shall also promise the rest with
interest when
I sue my father and
win,” Dalton sighed.