Chapter Twelve
Summer had second thoughts about having asked Todd to contact Shawn O’Bannion as she took her children from the stagecoach to a Boston bound train. Suppose with Cherokee’s help, Todd did reach the man? Summer’s father would be furious! Who would want his wife’s old love showing up on the scene as she lay dying? However, it would be worth weathering Father’s anger if she could find a way to bring a little happiness to her mother.
She hadn’t repeated her mother’s mistake, although it had taken courage to turn her back on everything she knew and go with her half-breed lover. But was their love strong enough to weather this storm of hurt feelings, anger and betrayal? Could it stand the test of a separation? She wasn’t even sure any more how she felt about Iron Knife or if he would still be waiting for her when she returned west.
Summer had forgotten how cold and grim the weather could be in Boston. She shivered and waited in the station, holding her whimpering toddler. Her two little boys were so astounded by all the crowds and noise that they stood staring big-eyed and silent at the hurrying people and commotion. Would Father meet her himself?
The question was answered as she saw her mother’s personal maid, Mrs. O’Malley, puffing toward her. The plump Irish woman had become a little heavier, a little grayer, in the ensuing years. “Miss Summer, lamb, I’ve been looking all about for ye!” She threw her arms around Summer and hugged her. “And are these the little bairns? Ah, such little loves they are now!” She bent to hug them, and the children stared up at the jolly white woman with suspicious eyes.
“Did Father come?” She craned her neck looking.
“The mister sends his regrets, lamb.” The widow looked a bit embarrassed. “He really meant to, but there was business to take care of; you understand.”
“Of course.” Had she expected him to change? Nothing mattered to Silas Van Schuyler except making money. With it, he was still attempting to prove he was worthy to be called one of the leaders of Boston. No doubt he hoped the blue-blooded nabobs would forget or overlook his past as a New Yorker whose family fortune had been built on “blackbirding”—running illegal but highly profitable slaves past federal blockades—before he branched out into more respectable enterprises.
“I’ve got Flannigan looking for the luggage, love. You remember Flannigan?”
Did she? Oh, yes, the bulbous-nosed coachman. Summer wouldn’t ask about her mother yet. If Priscilla had died before she arrived, she didn’t want to hear the news in the middle of bustling crowds and noisy trains. “I’m afraid there isn’t much luggage,” Summer said. “One doesn’t accumulate a lot when you’re on the move all the time, dragging everything on a travois. It’s a simple life.”
“Come then.” Mrs. O’Malley gathered up Garnet, and took Lance’s hand. “Now we’ll all go home and have a bit of food and meet everyone.”
“Food?” Baby Garnet lisped out one of the few English words she knew, then asked for her father in Cheyenne.
“Praise the saints! What is the little love saying?” Mrs. O’Malley asked as she hustled them toward the carriage.
Summer took Storm’s hand. “It’s Cheyenne; she’s wanting her daddy.”
She didn’t want to think about Iron Knife at this minute. He seemed like a part of another life, perhaps as in a novel or a dream. “Let’s get out of this noise and cold so we can talk.”
On the drive home, she bounced her daughter on her knee while the two little boys stared out the window. Finally she had the nerve to ask about Priscilla.
Mrs. O’Malley reached for the bag of knitting she always carried. “Aye, she’s still alive. Dr. Morgan says he doesn’t know what’s keeping the poor lass’s heart beating; it’s as if she’s waiting for something.”
Summer breathed a sigh of relief. “Is there no hope? Perhaps another doctor—”
“And do ye not think Silas Van Schuyler’s money hasn’t brought all the best doctors in the country to her bedside? No one can find anything special wrong with the poor lamb; it just seems as if she’s tired of living.”
Summer remembered Priscilla as she had been that New Year’s Eve, so very sad and weary. How old was her mother? Surely not more than forty-five or six? “What has been happening in all these years while I’ve been gone?”
“Things don’t change much at that house year in and year out except the calendars.” Mrs. O’Malley’s knitting needles clicked over her blue yarn. “Same servants, mostly, although there’s been a few part-time scrub women added with the missus so ill. Mr. Van Schuyler has a special hate for the Irish, always has had. My poor countrymen are pouring in here by the millions; starving back in the old country, they are.” She crossed herself.
“I’m sorry,” Summer said, embarrassed for her father. Was his hatred for the Irish merely economic or did he know about Shawn O’Bannion?
The maid’s needles clicked busily. “Nice lady and her daughter had been working for us cleaning now and then, Maureen Malone and her daughter, Sassy. Now the mother’s died, and your father won’t let me give any of the Malones full-time employment; and they’re desperately poor. If the master would, we could certainly use that Mike Malone, Maureen’s husband. Now there’s a fine, big man with some construction background.”
Summer only half-listened and held Garnet to her. She wasn’t feeling too well herself. Perhaps she had gotten hold of some spoiled food on the trip.
The plump Irish servant peered at her critically. “You don’t look too pert, love. That West is a barbaric place for a gently raised lady like yourself. The servants will be wanting to spoil these bairns and fatten you up a bit.”
“Have you heard from David?”
“Aye, he’s been here, got called back. They do say the war is winding down, but there’s still bloodshed aplenty. He’s toiling night and day with the Sanitary Commission, trying to help the wounded on the battlefields. They say more men are dying from infection and disease than wounds. Your father’s grumbling that your brother might get some loathsome disease and bring it home.”
“Father always was so kind and compassionate,” Summer said wryly.
The servant pursed her lips and didn’t say anything for a long moment. When she did speak, it was almost a whisper. “He’s a strange one, is Silas Van Schuyler, and there’s a thin line, they do say, between love and hate; and I sometimes wonder which it is he feels for my poor lady.” She paused to wipe her eyes and crossed herself.
She wondered if Mrs. O’Malley knew about Shawn O’Bannion? Summer didn’t even want to contemplate the wreckage of her parents’ life when she seemed to be making such a disaster of her own. “And the Osgoode sisters and my friend Maude?”
“The Osgoode girls are as prim and proper as always and desperately looking to make good marriages since their family money is gone. They invested in some company that made uniforms for the soldiers.”
“That seems like it would be a good investment,” Summer said absently.
“Ah, but there’s gossip the company owner, Albert Huntington, of Philadelphia, was spending company funds on women and gambling. He’s been murdered, they do say under very mysterious circumstances, and anyone who invested is losing everything.”
She had forgotten how much small gossip interested women in civilization. They didn’t, after all, have very much to entertain them. She didn’t know any Huntington family and certainly wasn’t interested in their finances. “Didn’t the Osgoode girls have a brother, Carter?”
The maid nodded. “Aye, and in the service, too, because he didn’t have the money to send a substitute like some of the other rich boys of fine families did. It don’t seem fair that the poor and the Irish are mostly the ones being sent to die, does it?”
“No, but the young and the poor are always the ones killed in war.” She thought about Sand Creek. “And sometimes women and children.”
“There’s been draft riots in New York,” Mrs. O’Malley said as her needles clicked busily. “They say President Lincoln’s weary and heartsick, but it does look like the war should be ending this spring; leastwise, everyone thinks so.”
She thought about her former fiance, Austin Shaw, who had hoped to serve with his fellow West Point classmate, George Armstrong Custer. She thought of the plump, rich girl who had a taste for garish dresses and big words she didn’t understand. “What about Austin and my friend Maude Peabody?”
Mrs. O’Malley chuckled as the carriage clopped along the street. “They say Miss Priddy’s Female Academy will never be the same after you and Miss Maude led that march to the capitol for women’s rights and got some lady students thrown in jail.”
Summer smiled in spite of herself. It seemed like such a long, long time ago. “Maude wasn’t thrown in jail.”
“Aye”—the maid shook her finger under Summer’s nose—“but the only reason she wasn’t was that she had chained herself to the state house door and forgot to bring a key.”
“So where is she?” Summer asked again. “I hope to see her and—”
“Nobody knows.” Mrs. O’Malley crossed herself again. “Bless the saints, she was determined to be a nurse in this fight. No one knows where she is, although there’s rumors she might have gotten dressed up like a man and gone along with the troops. There’s even talk she might be in Andersonville.”
“Andersonville?” Summer shuddered. On the train, she had heard talk of that infamous Southern prison. The Rebels didn’t have enough food or medicine to feed their own people, much less hundreds of Yankee prisoners. “They say thousands are dying in that prison.”
“Aye, let’s hope the poor lass is not there.”
They passed the big Shaw mansion with its white pillars, and Summer looked at it, remembering. The Shaws were well-known for their lavish balls. She thought about Austin Shaw. If she decided not to go back to Colorado, would he help her to cope? Her brother’s best friend had loved her since they were children, and everyone had expected her to marry him.
Now the carriage pulled through the ornate iron gates of the Van Schuyler estate next door and stopped at the entry. She sighed, thinking it really was the most ornate, ugly Victorian house in Boston. Silas Van Schuyler had wanted to flaunt his success to showcase the society blue-blood he had married. Priscilla Blackledge Van Schuyler was a prisoner princess in a garish castle.
Flannigan reined in, then got down to help them out. Evans, the arrogant British butler, opened the door to greet them. “Welcome home, Miss Summer, I’m sorry it’s such a sad occasion.”
“Thank you, Evans.” She noted he was looking over the children curiously. She would have to get used to that staring, she knew; however, dressed in regular clothing, their Indian blood wasn’t that apparent.
A thought crossed her mind. “Are you related to a Southerner I met called Cherokee Evans?”
“I doubt it, miss.” His nose wrinkled at the thought.
Summer went into the front hall and sighed. The house never changed, perhaps because the head of the household spent most of his time at his office and the lady of the house had never taken any interest or pride in the mansion. The interior smelled musty and decayed, with just the slightest scent of ancient roses, almost the ghost of dead blossoms. Gloom descended on Summer as she looked about the entry, remembering the dark, ornate furnishings throughout, the murky oil paintings and lots of bric-a-brac. Expensive Oriental rugs lay on dark walnut floors. In the front hall, the big grandfather clock ticked ponderously as it had ever since Summer could remember. Father took an enormous amount of satisfaction in it. One of her earliest memories was it booming out the hour of six and her scurrying down the stairs to dinner. Silas reigned at dinner, and he expected everyone to be there punctually. “Mrs. O’Malley, would you settle the children and I’ll go to my mother.”
She left the servants fussing over three tired, listless children and went up the stairs to Priscilla’s room, hesitating a long moment before opening the door. She was torn with wanting to hurry inside or turn and run down the hall. Remembering that New Year’s Eve, Summer took a deep breath and went in.
The room had not changed one bit in six years. A young, red-haired servant girl was bent over a carpetbag next to her mother’s bed. What was she packing? Then Summer realized the girl wasn’t packing, but unpacking it.
“Hello,” Summer said, “I’m Summer Van Schuyler and you are—?”
“Sassy, ma’am,” the pretty Irish girl said, “Sassy Malone. I’m sorry about your mother, miss.”
“Thank you.” Summer looked around. A fire blazed in the fireplace, and outside the window, snow had begun to fall on this February afternoon. The scent of roses now mingled with the scent of medicines. “How is she?”
“Sometimes she knows everyone and sometimes she doesn’t,” Sassy said. “So sad!”
Summer looked at the luggage again. What was going on here? “Isn’t that my mother’s?”
The girl nodded. “Aye, ma’am. The missus keeps packing when she can drag herself from her bed. The master likes things neat and tidy.”
Summer looked at the contents curiously. The old carpetbag contained one shoe, an old corset, a crocheted antimacassar from the back of a chair, a maid’s apron, a few hairpins, some faded ribbons, and old clothes that a self-respecting beggar couldn’t use. “What is all this stuff? It makes no sense.”
“It must to her, miss, she repacks whatever she finds, whenever she can drag herself out of bed. But by the saints, the poor thing couldn’t get out of the room unassisted.”
Summer looked toward the bed. “Does it seem to put her mind at ease to see that luggage?”
“Yes, miss, but the master says—”
“Then just leave it packed, Sassy,” Summer said, “no matter that its contents don’t make any sense.”
“But Mr. Van Schuyler told me—”
“I will deal with Father.” She must be growing up; she wasn’t as terrified of him as she had once been. “Just repack it and leave the luggage out where she can see it when she looks around the room.”
“All right, ma’am.” The girl began to repack.
Summer came to the bed and stood looking down at the slight form beneath the down comforters. The woman seemed almost lost among the pillows, her hair spread out like a gray-tinged yellow fan on the white sheets. “Mother?”
She looked so very old, Summer thought with horror, and so very, very tired. Fine lines etched the beautiful face, and she breathed so shallowly, the covers barely moved. “Mother, it’s me, Summer.”
For a long moment, she was certain her mother was asleep or in a coma, but when she leaned closer and put her hand over Priscilla’s thin one, the eyes as pale blue as her own flickered open. Priscilla stared up at Summer, her brow furrowing as if she was not quite certain of the identity of the girl who leaned over her. “Mother, it’s Summer, I’ve come home to visit.”
“Summer?” It seemed almost like the echo of her own voice. Then recognition seemed to come to the pale eyes, and the wan lips smiled ever so slightly. “Summer?”
“Yes, I’m here.” She blinked rapidly as she leaned over and kissed Priscilla’s cheek, not wanting to have a hot tear drip on her. “You’re looking well,” Summer lied. “Now that I’m here, you’ll have to get well so we can take the children to the park and out for drives when the weather warms.”
Her gaze seemed to fasten on the falling snow. “Cold . . . tell little Summer, David and Angela to wear their mittens.”
“Mother, I’m Summer.”
Priscilla looked at her blankly a long moment. “All grown up?” she whispered. “How can that be?”
“It—it just happens.”
Priscilla stared at her, then shook her head as if to clear it. “I remember now; you had a lover in the West.”
Summer nodded. “That’s right. I ran away with him.”
Priscilla smiled feebly. “I’m glad. You’re happy?”
She must not disturb her mother with her own problems. Summer stared out at the falling snow. How many years had Priscilla sat by this very window as the seasons came and went, remembering and regretting? “We’re very happy. I have children; I’ll bring them up to see you.”
“Children?” Priscilla again stared at her blankly. “Who are you?”
She had never felt such inner pain. “Mother, I’m Summer, your daughter, remember?”
Priscilla closed her eyes and shook her head. “I want the other Summer.”
“What other Summer?”
“My little girl.”
The Irish servant gave Summer a warning shake of her head and touched her own temple. At that, Summer squeezed the frail hand. “Yes, Priscilla, I’ll see about Summer. She must be out playing in the snow.” Priscilla smiled without opening her eyes and seemed to drift off to sleep.
Tears blinded Summer as she stumbled out of the room, and she was sobbing as she closed the door and bumped into Dr. Morgan, who was just coming up the stairs. “Why didn’t anyone warn me she was so bad?”
The old doctor patted her arm. “It comes and goes. She has her good days and bad days. Years of laudanum and sherry have done their damage, I suppose; but I couldn’t stop her, and neither could your father, Miss Summer.”
“Is that what’s wrong with her?” Summer wiped her eyes.
He hooked his thumbs in the vest across his portly chest. “Not entirely. Sometimes I think she’s just very weary of life and has willed herself to stop going through the motions.”
“Then why doesn’t she die?” Summer almost screamed it at him. “She’s so frail and thin. She looks like an old woman already!”
“I can’t answer that, either.” Dr. Morgan chewed the end of his mustache. “I told Silas she would be gone before the New Year, but something is holding her; it’s as if she’s waiting for something or someone.”
“Me? I’m here and she doesn’t even know me.” Summer began to cry again.
“Who knows? Maybe you, maybe to see your brother again, maybe just a change in the weather. As I recall, your mother spent a lot of time in her garden with her roses. Maybe she wants to smell the new blossoms one more time before she goes.”
“Is she in any pain?”
“I don’t think so; at least not physically. Something seems to keep replaying itself in her mind over and over because she keeps staring out at the snow; we’ve had quite a lot of it lately.”
Abruptly, she felt sick and weary and so very sorry for her mother. “You’re telling me Priscilla could go on like this for months?”
“Only God knows.” Dr. Morgan shook his head. “If I could look in her mind and tell you what she waits for, what’s keeping her here, I could tell you when it all will end. At least everyone now has a chance to say goodbye to her.”
She began to weep again. “What good does it do to say goodbye to a mother who doesn’t even recognize me?”
“Summer, do it for yourself, not for any good it does her.” He peered at her a long moment, stroking his white mustache. “You don’t look too well; is there something wrong in your own life?”
“Of course not! I have a wonderful man and three healthy children.”
He regarded her thoughtfully. “You seem to be under a terrible strain.”
“My mother is dying; I’d call that strain enough! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to see about my children.” She lifted her skirts and swept down the hall to the old nursery. She didn’t want to discuss the doubts and problems she was having, and she was upset that maybe it was so very obvious.
All three of the children had been fed and tucked in to bed. Summer kissed each one and went down the stairs. It was growing dark outside, and father’s carriage was arriving home. She was too weary to face him tonight. She asked Mrs. O’Malley to send a tray up to her room, pleaded illness, and retired, leaving a message she would breakfast with him in the morning. That was soon enough to face him.
Her own bedroom hadn’t changed, either. It still had its light colors of blues and yellows and a window seat full of cushions on the south side of the house where when she was small, she used to sit on sunny days and read for hours. Tonight, she sat there for hours after the big mansion had grown dark and silent, watching the snow fall past the window and listening to the big grandfather clock boom the time all night, echoing throughout the big mansion. Silas was extremely proud of it, and often used it to set the gold pocket watch he carried.
Summer slept late the next morning, and when she awakened, the snow was still falling outside the window. She stared at it a long moment, trying to figure out where she was. Boston. She almost groaned aloud. She was back in Boston in this prison of a house because Mother was dying. Her love was many miles away, and she wouldn’t be able to rush back to him, try to straighten out their problems, until her mother died. She could be here for weeks. Or even months.
Summer got up and went through her wardrobe, looking for something to put on. No, she shook her head, she didn’t intend to stay for weeks. Iron Knife needed her, and she loved him; they would work all their problems out. Her first priority was her man.
Summer sat down at her desk and wrote Iron Knife a hurried note telling him so. Then she addressed it to Todd with instructions to pass it on and went downstairs just in time to bump into Father, who was putting on his hat and overcoat.
“So there you are”—he frowned—“we missed you at breakfast.”
If just once, he would say, “daughter I love you so much and I’m so glad to see you,” or hug her. He was such a distant, cold man.
“I—I’m sorry, Father, I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Humph! No wonder! Living in the wilderness away from civilization is enough to kill anyone!” He fixed cold, blue eyes upon her, and his beaked nose made him seem like a bird of prey. “I did meet little Lance at breakfast, smart tyke and looks white, too.”
“He is three-quarters white, if you’ll recall,” she reminded him. “And of course, there’s Storm.”
Father frowned. “Oh, yes, the dark one. Now that Lance, spunky little fellow.” Silas smiled. “He’s a Van Schuyler, all right!”
“He’s inquisitive and not at all shy.”
“Certainly different from your brother, David.” Silas frowned. “Don’t know how I ended up with such a mollycoddle for a son; no interest in my business at all.”
“Father, David is sensitive and talented; he wants to be an artist,” she rushed to defend her twin.
“An artist!” Silas snorted. “No money in that. Angela has more interest in my business than your brother does.”
There was no point in going through this old argument again. “I’m glad you approve of my sons; maybe sometime you can take them to the office. I’m sure they’ll find this house dull with no other little boys around.”
“You mean, take that dark one, too?”
“Well, yes, they are brothers, you know.”
Silas said, “What’s that in your hand?”
“A letter to Todd Shaw to get to Iron Knife. I was hoping maybe Flannigan might be up in town on an errand today and could mail it.”
“Flannigan will be lucky to get me to my office in the sleigh with this snow. Here, give it to me, I’ll mail it on the way.”
She was touched by his kindness. “Why, thank you, Father.” She handed it over, and he tucked it in his overcoat pocket.
“It’s not any extra trouble—” he cleared his throat—“I can at least do that for you.”
“I appreciate that.” She favored him with a tender smile and he beamed, then nodded. Could her father be softening after all these years? Perhaps the fact that her mother was dying had brought him face-to-face with the. bankruptcy of his personal relationships.
He acted as if her gratitude embarrassed him as he turned toward the door. “I don’t suppose you’re considering staying on?”
She looked at him blankly. “You mean, permanently?”
“Ye Gods, of course I mean permanently!” He was back to his old self, snappy and irritable. “There’s a Plains war going on that you and your children might not survive, your brother is off playing nursemaid to a bunch of dying soldiers and your mother will not make it ’til spring. It seems only sensible that you might want to stay, either permanently or at least for a few months.”
He was lonely, and his life and children hadn’t turned out as he would have wished. Her heart went out to him, and she put her hand on his sleeve. “Perhaps I’ll stay awhile and get you through this difficult time until . . . well, you know. But then. . . .”
Disappointment crossed his flinty face as the pompous butler hurried to hand him his briefcase, then stood waiting by the front door.
“Well, I’ll mail your letter,” Father said again. “We’ll talk more tonight. Dinner is at six, remember?”
How could she forget? The whole house was a slave to the big grandfather clock. At precisely six every night, day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out, the big clock chimed, and everyone showed up to sit down at the ornate dining table set with the fine china painted with pink and burgundy roses.
“Thank you, Father.” She turned and went into the kitchen where the servants would be having a crusty bit of homemade scones thick with butter, marmalade, and a cup of strong tea for breakfast. She was looking forward to it.
Silas stood watching her a long moment as she disappeared toward the kitchen. Then he turned to the butler, who was opening the door. “Evans,” he whispered, “any mail or message that comes or goes to or from Miss Summer, I want to see first, you understand?”
“Yes sir, perfectly.”
A fine employee; always did exactly as he was told with no questions asked. Silas smiled as he went out into the cold where Flannigan waited to help him into the sleigh. He stared at the letter in his hand as Flannigan cracked the whip and the fine bay horse pulled away, the bells on its harness jingling merrily.
Silas had not realized how much he had missed having Summer in the house; she reminded him of Priscilla when she was a young woman. That made him feel young, too, as if he could roll back the years.
He hadn’t expected to like Summer’s children; he had expected them to be dark little savages dressed in buckskin, and that Storm was. But Lance and little Garnet were light-skinned. He could show those two grandchildren off in any crowd of his peers without being embarrassed. Lance was just the kind of little boy Silas had always wanted; the son he had dreamed of who might be sharp and ruthless, ready to take the empire Silas had built and carry on, build it even bigger. Silas was resigned to losing his wife; he had come to accept that long ago. In fact, he had never really had her. Priscilla had only been the beautiful princess imprisoned in the castle he had built her and had always acted as if someday, a prince would arrive on a white horse and carry her away.
Silas frowned. A prince. A damned Irish dirt grubber was what he’d been. He’d always had to compete with that ghost from her past. The Irish—how he hated them! He smiled, thinking how he’d just given the butler orders to fire all the Irish except Mrs. O’Malley. Well, at least he had Summer and her children back in his empty big mansion, but unless something drastic happened, Summer intended to return to the West, leaving him again desolate and alone.
Summer’s letter in his hand brought him back to the present. What was he to do? He didn’t have any trouble deciding that. When he got to his office, he read the letter. Then he tore it up and threw it in the trash.