They call her Dana (70 page)

Moving behind the desk, I opened the top right-hand drawer. No writing paper there, just folders and ledgers. The top middle drawer contained an account book and business papers, pens, ruler, a magnifying glass, and the top left-hand drawer contained bundles of what looked like business contracts. Everything was neat and tidy, as was to be expected from a man as orderly as Robert. I sighed, sat down in the leather-cushioned chair and pulled open the middle drawer on the right, and my own face looked up at me from a delicate oval miniature in a

frame of gold filigree set with tiny diamonds and pearls. Startled, I lifted the miniature out of the drawer, wondering when he had had it done. I certainly hadn't sat for it. The artist had done a superb job, capturing my features perfectly. I might have been staring into a tiny mirror, only ... I had never worn my hair in sausage ringlets, and . . . and I had never worn a white tulle dress sprigged with small daisies. The dress was old-fashioned, as least... at least twenty-five years out-of-date.

I knew then. I understood. Understanding came all at once and with shocking force. My pulses seemed to stop. I seemed to be encased in ice. With understanding came horror, and, though paralyzed, a trembling started inside and I closed my eyes and for several long minutes I seemed to swim in a dark, icy void. That curious bond between us ... the feeling we had known each other in another lifetime ... it was all clear now. The empathy, the afl^inity, the sense of security I felt when in his presence . . . blood and basic instincts had known, had responded, even if the rest of me was unaware. I felt a stirring around me, and I opened my eyes. The air was still. The atmosphere was clear. There was nothing there now. Ma was gone. She had done her job, and she was gone, and I looked at her face there in the miniature and understood everything.

I was no longer in the elegant study in Belle Mead. I was in that squalid room in the shack in the swamps, and Ma was there in her bed, all pale and waxen, her forehead moist, her graying honey-blond hair damp. She was dying, but her eyes filled with joyous recognition as she looked at me and saw not me but someone else. If you had known—Oh, Robert, if you had known, you wouldn 't have—I wanted to die then. I wanted to stop living, but I couldn 't because—because I was carrying our little girl. I heard her dear, fading voice whispering those words, and then I heard another voice, raspy and cracked and confused, and I saw Mama Lou's face in wildly flickering candlelight. What he wants, it is unnatural, it is wrong and you must—you must not do this thing. It is wrong, against nature.

My mother had loved Robert Courtland with all her heart. He was not of her class, not of her kind, did not belong to that exclusive circle of the New Orleans Creole aristocracy. She could have made a grand marriage, but she had loved him and had run away with him, and ... he had loved her, too. There was one, he had told me that afternoon as we remmed to the hotel after

our lunch at the market. There was one I should have married. Through my own foolishness I lost her. I was very young, but I should never have ... He had never forgotten her and he had seen me and I reminded him of her and he felt that curious bond, too. Robert had loved my mother, but he had left her, and he had never known that she was carrying a child.

I sat there at the desk, still stunned, immobile, all these thoughts parading through my mind in solemn procession, and I have no idea how much time might have passed when I finally heard his carriage pull up in front of the house. I ran my hand across my brow, trying to compose myself, but it was several minutes before I found the strength to stand. My knees felt weak, and I had a moment of panic as I heard his footsteps approaching the study. Standing behind the desk, I silently prayed for strength. He stepped through the doorway and paused just inside the room, smiling when he saw me.

*'Here you are," he said.

The smile played on his lips. It was a beautiful smile, warm and loving, and his eyes were full of adoration he didn't even try to conceal. He was wearing pale tan breeches and frock coat and a brown and white striped satin waistcoat and a brown silk neckcloth, and his glossy auburn hair was neatly brushed, gleaming with rich highlights. How glorious he must have been all those years ago, I thought. He must have been a veritable Adonis.

"It's wonderiiil to see you," he said. "You have no idea how I've missed you."

I didn't say anything. I didn't trust myself to speak.

"I couldn't find you when I first got in. Maudie told me she thought you had come in here."

"I—I came to get some more writing paper," I told him.

My voice sounded stiff and seemed to be coming from someone else. Robert looked puzzled, and then he looked concerned.

"You—you're pale, Dana. Is something wrong?"

"I didn't find the paper," I said. "I found this."

I picked up the miniature and showed it to him, then placed it back on the desk.

"Clarisse," he said quietly.

"At first I thought you had had a miniature of me painted."

I

"You—you look remarkably like her," Robert said, and his f'

voice was hesitant. "That's what first drew me to you, I admit it, but I—I fell in love with you, Dana,"

"She was the one, wasn't she? The one you said you should have married."

Robert nodded. "It was a long time ago, I was very young, and I was very foolish."

"Tell me about her, Robert,"

"Dana, I see no point in—"

"Tell me about her."

"She—she came from a very distinguished family. I told you— I was an orphan. I had been on my own since I was fourteen years old. I made my living by my wits, by my charm. I wasn't bad, but—I wasn't respectable, either. I met Clarisse, and she believed in me. She believed I could be somebody, become a success. I—we ran off together. I loved her. I wanted to make her proud. I—after a few months I realized-"

He paused, looking very sad.

"After a few months I realized I could only make her unhappy. She was accustomed to luxury, to all the fine things in life, and we were living in a tiny flat and she was washing her own clothes and—I can't do this to her, I told myself. I had over three hundred dollars. One night while Clarisse was sleeping I left most of the money and a note and I crept out of the flat. The next morning I left town on the first train. I told myself I was doing it for her. I—perhaps I was merely frightened of commitment."

"And then what happened?"

"1\vo years later I went back to New Orleans. I had spent those two years working, working hard, and I had quite a bit of money. I had discovered that I had a knack for maldng shrewd deals, and I had made several by then. I no longer relied on my wits, on my charm. I planned to marry her. I planned—" He paused again, gazing into the past, his expression grave. "Her family wouldn't see me," he continued. "I learned that she had married someone else. I tried my best to forget her. I—never could. I devoted my life to making a fortune, and I succeeded. There were many women, but until I met you there was—no one like Clarisse."

There was a long silence. I moved over to one of the windows to gaze out at the lawn, trying to summon strength. Finally I turned and looked at him and saw his grave expression and his

sad gray eyes, and I bit my lower lip. When I spoke, my voice trembled not at all.

"She married someone else because she had to," I told him.

He frowned, "How—how could you possibly—"

He cut himself short and looked at me, the furrow between his brows deepening, and realization came then. I saw the knowledge in his eyes, and I saw his cheeks turn ashen.

"She was pregnant," I said. "Her family refused to take her in. She got a room in a cheap waterfront hotel and—the money you left her eventually ran out. Clem O'Malley found her there. He was an overseer at one of the plantations she used to visit when she was a girl. He married her and took her back there, and I was bom shortly thereafter. Clem O'Malley gave me his name, but he—he was not my father."

"My God," he whispered.

"He lost his job. We moved to the swamps. I was brought up there, living in a squalid shanty. Ma—Ma worked like a farmer's wife and her health seeped away little by little. She—never talked about the past. She never told me who my father was, but—" My voice threatened to break. I paused and took a deep breath. "She got the consumption, and—and as she was dying she looked at me and she thought I was you and—she said your name, just your first name. She loved you always."

These last words were a mere whisper. His face was completely drained of color now, and the pain in his eyes was terrible to behold. I wanted to go to him and comfort him. I wanted to hold him to me and tell him it was all right, but I couldn't. I couldn't move.

' 'I 'm—sorry,'' he said. ' 'You'll never know how sorry I am— about everything."

"It was—neither of us knew."

' 'Neither of us knew,'' he repeated.

He looked at me with that terrible pain in his eyes, and then he came over to me and put his arms around me and folded me to him. He held me close, held me tenderly, but only for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said again, and his voice was so faint I could barely hear the words. He released me and moved back, and then he turned and left the room.

He left the house a few minutes later. I was moving down the hall when I heard the carriage pulling away. Maudie met me in the foyer. She said Mister Robert done left an' he didn't say

where he was goin'. She looked worried, and she was even more worried when dinnertime came and he hadn't returned. I let her bring a tray of food up to my sitting room, but I ate very little. Maudie fussed and fretted when she returned for the tray, said I looked pooriy, said I wudn't to get all het up, there was bound to be a reason why Mister Robert hadn't come back. She was going to bring me a glass of warm milk and I was to get right to bed an' none of dat readin' till all hours.

I drank the milk. I went to bed. I didn't sleep. I watched misty silver moonbeams chase the shadows over the walls and ceiling and listened to the heavy oak boughs creaking gently in the night. It must have been after three when I finally drifted into a troubled sleep, and it seemed only a matter of minutes before I awoke to find Maudie bustling about with a breakfast tray. She pulled the curtains open and sunlight spilled into the room in brilliant rays. It was after ten o'clock, she told me, and no, Mister Robert hadn't come back yet. He was goin' to get what for when he did. Sure, he was a grown man, but it wudn't right, worry in' people half to death.

The day seemed interminable. Every hour seemed like ten. Robert didn't return. I wondered if I should pack my bags and leave quiedy. Perhaps that would be the best thing for both of us. I could return to New Orleans and stay with Corey until I decided what I was going to do. No, that would be cowardly. He was my father. I couldn't run away. I would wait for him, and when he returned we would talk, we would work things out. I ate no lunch. I was sharp with Maudie when she kept fussing over me, and then I had to apologize and make things up with her. She had a feelin' in her bones, a bad feelin'. Dis wudn't like Mister Robert. I had a feeling, too, and I tried to ignore it as late afternoon sunshine made shadows lengthen across the lawn and I wandered under the oaks, my pink cotton skirt fluttering in the breeze.

I heard the hoofbeats on the drive. Relief flooded over me. I turned and saw the powerful black horse and the man in gray riding it, and the fading sunlight burnished his dark blond hair. Len. I was some distance from the house. He dismounted and gave the reins to Leroy and started toward me, his expression grim. I knew then. I stood there under the oaks as the shadows lengthened and I knew, even before he reached me, even before he spoke. He took my hands. He told me that Robert had come

to his office yesterday afternoon and had insisted on making a new wilL It was duly written and witnessed and signed, everything done with impeccable legal care.

' 'He provided for the servants, and he left me a small bequest, and he left everything else to you, Dana. Belle Mead. All his business interests. Everything. Millions."

I said nothing. I was unable to speak.

"He—he told me he needed to be alone for a while. He said he was going to take the boat out. He kept a small craft in a berth down on the river. He usually took at least two men with him as crew, but yesterday he went out alone. It was possible for one man to handle the boat."

"He—didn't come back," I whispered.

Len held my hands very tightly, so tightly I felt pain.

"They found the boat, Dana. It had cracked up on a sandbar, and there was a large hole in the bottom. They found Robert a short while later. He was—he had washed up onshore half a mile away.''

"No," I whispered.

"It was an accident. Everyone believes it was an accident."

I shook my head. Len squeezed my hands even tighter.

"We must let them believe that," he said.

"You know."

Len nodded, and he finally released my hands.

"He told me. He said he wanted me to know. He—before he left the office he casually remarked that if anything should happen to him, he was depending on me to—take care of things for you. I should have sensed something was wrong. I should never have let him take the boat out."

' 'You mustn't blame yourself." -

"He was not only my employer, Dana. He was also my best friend."

I nodded. Why couldn't I cry? Why wouldn't the tears fall? Why did I feel completely numb?

"There will be journalists, Dana," Len said. "You're a famous woman, and there is no way—"

"I understand."

"I'll do what I can."

He put his arm around my shoulders then, and we started back to the house, walking slowly beneath the oaks. The mauve-gray shadows were deepening to purple. Leaves rusded over-

head. Maudie and Leroy and several other servants had gathered on the verandah, all of them anxious, all of them sensing something was wrong. Maudie was wringing her hands.

"What am I going to do, Len?" I asked. My voice was hollow.