Chapter Fifteen

So cold for the first week of April. Shawn O’Bannion stood in the Boston train station looking around. He had been back to this city only one time since he had left as a young man many years ago. He had returned once he was rich to reclaim the woman he loved, but he was too late; forever too late. He would not think about that now.

Turning up his coat collar against the raw wind, he hailed a carriage outside the station. The cold rain was turning into sleet and snow as darkness fell, and the raw wind cut right through him. He stood under a street lamp, feeling that he was reliving that long-ago night all over again. The unkempt cabbie reined in, then climbed down to open the carriage door.

“Take me to a flower shop,” Shawn ordered.

“A flower shop? You must be jokin’! Shops will be closed at this hour, mister.”

“There’s a good tip in it for you, my man, should you find me one that’s open.”

Shawn felt the cabbie assessing his fine clothes and the diamond stickpin in his necktie. “Get in, then; me thinks one run by a pair o’ sisters might still be open.”

“Good enough.” Shawn watched the man as he looked around for luggage. “There isn’t any. I plan to leave out again tonight.” There was, after all, nothing to stay for. He thought about the letter in his pocket that had been gathering dust for weeks at the small country post office, but the Yankees had just begun releasing their prisoners. With his wounded right hand, Shawn was finished as a soldier; and besides, the war would be ending any day now. He only hoped he wasn’t too late on his quest.

Shawn got in and leaned back against the seat with a sigh. It was as cold as an English landlord’s heart, he thought, remembering the peasants being thrown off their lands as the potato crops failed. Shawn was lucky; he had made it to America, but millions of others had starved to death.

He looked out the window at familiar sights as the carriage clopped along. Each brought back a memory, and he was almost sorry he had come. Yet if she still breathed, he had to see her one more time; he loved her so. He reached in his coat for the reassuring feel of the pistol. With his crippled and weakened fingers, he couldn’t handle a saber, but he might be able to pull a trigger.

The carriage pulled up before a small shop. The driver leaned in the window. “Here ’tis, mister, shall I wait? Looks closed.”

“Aye, wait; perhaps they will open for me.” He stepped from the carriage. Around him, in the dark chill night, snow was falling again. So cold for early April, he thought. Hadn’t it been an unseasonably cold April night that he had waited under a street lamp in vain so many years ago?

Osgoode Sisters’ Flowers. The lights of the shop reflected off the frozen puddles of the road. The carriage horse’s steamy breath floated on the cold air. Shawn went to the shop door, and it jangled as he started in.

“I’m sorry, we’re just closing, sir.” A rather prim girl who might have been in her mid-twenties came out of the back room shaking her head.

“Oh, please, miss, I’m here to pick up an order.” He saw her hesitate. “I tip well.”

“I don’t know. . . .” She seemed to assess his fine coat, then stepped back to let him enter. He sized her up even as a slightly younger version of her came out of the back room. Genteel sisters down on their luck and reduced to working in a shop, he thought. “I need a bouquet of roses,” he said, looking about the shop, “a big bouquet.”

“Impossible,” the younger one sniffed. “Now, we might have a few mums or daisies in the greenhouse.”

However, he was already brushing past her toward two giant bouquets in vases on the counter. “This is what I had in mind; and just the colors she loved, too, deep burgundy and pink.” He buried his face in the roses, took a deep breath. Whenever he smelled the fragrance of roses, he would always think of the beautiful young girl he had loved so very long ago.

“Impossible!” the older one said. “The Griswold coachman is due any moment to pick those bouquets up for the lady’s evening dinner dance.”

Shawn pulled out his wallet. “Surely Mrs. Griswold can get by with a bouquet of roses and one of daisies or such.”

“We can’t do that,” the younger sister protested. “She’ll think those are too common for such a lavish party, and that large family’s so prominent and good customers.”

He was very weary and heartsick. Shawn threw down a handful of twenty-dollar gold pieces. “That should pay for the bouquet many times over.”

“Yes, but—”

“I am taking these flowers to a dying sweetheart,” Shawn said softly, “and I will have them if I have to take them at gunpoint.” He laid the pistol next to the money.

The two looked at him with wide eyes, then at each other. No doubt they thought him crazed, but he was past caring. He didn’t even mind if they called the police—as long as the officers didn’t get there in time to stop him from seeing Priscilla.

The younger lady wrung her hands. “Sister, for that much money, don’t you think we could rearrange Mrs. Griswold’s flowers into mixed bouquets so the gentleman could have the roses?”

The other one stared at the pistol. “I—I believe so.”

“Good lasses.” Shawn breathed a sigh of relief, slipped the gun in his pocket, and watched the older one take the bouquet from its vase, then wrap it in tissue paper. “One thing more; I’d like one yellow rose in the center, if you please.”

“One yellow one in a center of pink and burgundy roses? It won’t look very artistic—”

“Damn artistic, I said one yellow rose.”

Both women looked at him as if they were dealing with a madman. “Y—yes, of course.”

He watched them place one yellow rose in the center of the bouquet, then hand it to him. His eyes misted, and he had to blink as he turned to go out in the cold. A yellow rose. It was their secret; a yellow rose for remembrance. He hoped he wasn’t arriving in Boston so late he would end up placing it on her grave.

Shawn hunched his shoulders against the cold and went back out to the carriage. To the cabbie, Shawn said, “Do you know the Van Schuyler mansion?”

“Who don’t?” The driver shrugged. “Rich one, he is; big house, everything money can buy, he’s got.”

Including the woman I love, Shawn thought bitterly as he said, “Take me there.”

He got in and the carriage pulled away. Shawn felt for the pistol in his pocket with his crippled hand, buried his face in the roses. The scent reminded him of a warm summer night a long, long time ago. He had made love to her in the garden with the roses dropping their spent petals on their naked skin; so very young and he had been so very poor. He was the Blackledges’ gardener, and she was a blue-blooded aristocrat from the best section of Boston. He had loved her more than life itself, but she had not loved him enough.

The snow was falling faster and thicker now, just like that night when they had arranged to meet and run away. Shawn would always remember the cold and how it had bitten into him as he stood under the street lamp outside her father’s home, waiting. Waiting. Waiting. . . . He didn’t know how many hours he had stood there before he realized she had changed her mind and wasn’t coming.

As he had walked away into the darkness, he had vowed that night he would make money, lots of money! He wasn’t sure how, but by Saint Patrick, he would do it! Then he would come back all dressed fine and with a good carriage, fling the gold down before her father. I’ve come for Priscilla, he would say. I’m not just a poor Mick of a gardener anymore.

It had taken him longer to get rich than he had hoped it would. Shawn had drifted around at first, trying to decide what he could do to gain wealth. Then he’d heard rumors of gold in California. He had land staked and claimed during the big rush to Sutter’s Mill. Finally Shawn had gold nuggets piled in several banks. His next task had been to build a castle to bring his princess home to, something more grand than the home of her father. So Shawn had found his way to the bountiful rolling country of Tennessee and built a plantation that was sumptuous beyond his wildest dreams: Shannon Place. Shannon Place on the rolling Mississippi River, so much like the wide Shannon River in Ireland. He had his castle, Shannon Place.

Then he’d been ready to claim his bride. It had been at least ten years. He hadn’t wanted to think that she might not have waited. Even though he was a good Catholic, he’d thought that if she had married, he might steal her away and take her with him.

“Here we are, mister.” The driver leaned in the window. “Are the Van Schuylers expectin’ you?”

“Hmm,” Shawn said, and stepped out, still clutching his bouquet. He reached to pay the driver.

“Shall I wait, mister?”

Shawn shook his head. “I—I don’t know how long I’ll be.” Or even if I’ll get in, he thought.

Shawn stared at the big, imposing mansion with all its lights ablaze as the carriage clopped away into the cold darkness. Aye, he had been here that one time. Even now, it brought him pain. He had come to reclaim the woman he loved, and a servant at the old Blackledge home had taken pity on him, directed him to the new Van Schuyler mansion. It was an unseasonably warm afternoon that time.

He had stood here before this mansion just as he was doing now; except it had been a Sunday. While he stood there that long-ago day staring down the drive, he had seen a fine barouche coming out and had hidden behind some shrubbery to watch. The big iron gates had opened, and a pair of high-stepping grays in a fine black harness studded with silver pulled the red-wheeled open carriage with its plush scarlet seats. The driver wore the best livery and snapped his whip.

Shawn felt his heart skip a beat. There were four passengers, a stern older man with hawklike features, whom he recognized as Silas Van Schuyler, and a beautiful blond woman in a bonnet with roses on the brim. She looked like a garden in her flowered fine dress. Priscilla. He had to force himself not to run after the carriage, calling her name. Children. There was a little boy and girl about nine or ten years old. Twins maybe, for they looked alike and they were as fair and blue-eyed as his Priscilla.

Children. Somehow, he hadn’t thought about children. How could he take their mother away? In his pain, Shawn had come out from behind the shrubbery, staring after the coach.

Silas saw him; he knew that immediately from the expression of hatred on the other man’s face. He glared at Shawn until the coach was lost from sight over a hill.

Shawn slumped against the fancy iron gate and shook. He had returned for Priscilla, and she was as beautiful as he remembered, maybe even more so. Now he had money to give her father, a mansion to house his princess, and he could not take her because she had children. Shawn’s gold might as well have been pebbles. He had come too late—too late.

That night, Shawn had gotten roaring drunk, gone back to Tennessee and married an elegant, blue-blooded beauty who looked amazingly like Priscilla with her blond hair and blue eyes. But she wasn’t Priscilla, and Shawn had to face the fact that Savannah St. Claire had never loved him; she had married him for the same reason Priscilla had married Silas: money. Her aristocratic Southern family had gone through all their holdings and needed money; otherwise, the snooty Savannah would have disdained the common Irish gardener with his new wealth. She told him that once in a terrible quarrel. That was all right, Shawn thought now with a sigh; he didn’t love Savannah either, even though they had a young son. He had married her because she was everything Priscilla was; but she was not Priscilla.

The cold wind blew through him again, and Shawn realized he had been standing for some time in front of the big iron gates. Clutching his bouquet of roses, he went through the gate and up the drive to the imposing entrance. He paused on the step before ringing the bell, then felt to make sure he had the pistol. He would see Priscilla one more time even if he had to kill Silas Van Schuyler to do it!

 

 

Silas stood staring into the library fireplace. Behind him, he heard Angela twist in her chair and sigh.

“Father, you know she will die tonight, don’t you?”

He turned and looked at his pretty child sitting in an overstuffed chair, stroking her black cat. No, she was no longer a child; somehow, the years had gotten away from him. She seemed so strange, or was it the witches on Priscilla’s side of the family? “We’ve been expecting your mother to die for months; what makes you think it will be tonight?”

Angela shrugged and looked at him with eyes as cold and pale blue as his own. “It will happen at almost precisely nine o’clock.”

Silas snorted and reached for his glass of port on the mantel. “Then she’d better hurry.”

After all these weeks, he was too mentally worn out to go rushing up the stairs where Dr. Morgan and Summer were by his wife’s bedside. He listened to the wind rattle the windows as if something dark and unnamed prowled around the mansion like a thief, wanting to get in. Was it coming for Priscilla? She hated cold weather; it killed her damned roses every year.

Roses. He turned and looked at Angela again, remembering. Once he had adored Priscilla; maybe he still did. But soon after the wedding, he had realized she had only married him for his money to rescue her aristocratic parents, who had fallen on hard times. She had let him know he could have her body, but never her heart; that belonged to Shawn O’Bannion.

A damned Mick; an Irish dirt grubber. Shawn O’Bannion. Even now, when he thought of him, a rage came over Silas. The whole damned house was a shrine to him and his damned roses. Silas sipped his port and stared into the flames. Why had he thought that once he married the proud beauty, he could love her enough, give her enough that she would warm toward him and forget that lowly immigrant? It hadn’t happened. Silas kept thinking that in time. . . . It hadn’t happened. After those first few official marriage couplings, Priscilla had always locked her door against him.

Years passed. Priscilla had produced twins, Summer and David. The Irishman had long ago gone away and been swallowed up by this giant country. Silas dared hope that maybe someday, Priscilla would forget him, and certainly as the decade passed, he breathed easier, thinking Shawn was surely dead or had at least forgotten about her.

Then one unseasonably warm Sunday afternoon, Silas had taken his family for a carriage ride. Leaving the estate grounds, he saw a figure lurking in the shrubbery. He recognized him instantly, even though the man had aged in ten years: Shawn O’Bannion. So he had returned for her!

That night, Silas had been in a rage of jealous frustration and had gotten roaring drunk. More than ten years Priscilla Blackledge had been his wife, and things were no better between them. Now Shawn O’Bannion was in town. Who knew if he would rendezvous with Priscilla, steal her away, make Silas the laughing stock of all Boston society? Already he seemed to hear ladies’ delighted giggles behind their fans: . . . did you hear that rich Silas Van Schuyler’s wife ran off with a gardener?

That night, he had broken down her door and raped Priscilla most violently out of sheer fury and frustration. Angela had been the result. At least with her belly swollen big, Silas had not worried that his wife would run away with her lover. They had never spoken of that night, but Silas had never again been in his wife’s bed. He had put his energy into making money, building a financial empire; Priscilla had lost herself in her rose garden, her laudanum habit and an ocean of sherry.

The big clock out in the hall chimed, and Silas came back to the present as he pulled out his watch. “Eight-thirty,” he said to no one in particular, “has run perfectly all these years.”

“But it will stop in thirty minutes,” Angela said matter-of-factly, “and it will never run again.”

He turned and looked at her. “Not likely! That clock has run day in and day out for more than a quarter of a century.”

“But it will stop thirty minutes from now.” Her cold eyes seemed to be calmly stating a fact.

“You think you can always see the future?”

“Sometimes.” She stroked her cat. Such a cold personality and the one most like himself; too bad she was a girl. Angela had that hard streak that would have made her the perfect heir to take over his kingdom.

The snow blew against the windows. Would tonight really be the night Priscilla died? There had been so many false alarms, and Silas was physically drained by all this waiting. Even Dr. Morgan had said she should have been gone a long time ago; she was holding on by sheer force of will. What was it she waited for?

The doorbell rang, and he heard Evans going to answer it. “Ye Gods,” he muttered, “who would be out in this weather at this time of night?”

“The one she’s been waiting for,” Angela said without changing her expression.

A chill ran right up Silas’ back. He paused with the drink halfway to his lips and scowled at her. “Who?”

Angela shrugged and stroked the black cat. “I don’t know; but you will.”

Before he could say anything else, Evans came to the door. “Beg pardon for disturbing you, sir, but there’s someone here to see Mrs. Van Schuyler.”

Silas glanced toward Angela, who smiled slightly. Who was it? Death? He had a sudden vision of the grim reaper with a grinning skull’s face and a long black robe standing in the front hall. “Impossible! Did you explain that my wife is bedridden, dying?”

The butler gestured helplessly. “I tried, sir, but he won’t take no for an answer! Shall I send for the police?”

A man was pushing past the butler, a tall, handsome man with gray-streaked black hair and green eyes. Snowflakes clung to the wool of his fine topcoat, and in his arms, he carried a large bouquet of roses. “Aye, you may call the police, but I will see her, Silas, and I’m armed. I will kill whoever stands in my way!”

Shawn O’Bannion. Silas dropped his glass of port. The sound of the glass shattering echoed loud in the silence. A rage began to build in him. He wanted to attack the man with both fists, but the other looked grim and equally determined. “You dare to come into my house with my wife dying upstairs?”

“You’ve had her all these years; I only want to see her one more time.”

The years had treated Shawn kindly, Silas thought; except for the gray in his hair, and the fine lines around his expressive eyes, he was still handsome and lean. Silas smiled in triumph. “You can’t take her with you if that’s why you came; she’s dying.”

And now Shawn smiled sadly. “Aye, I know. I feel sorry for you, Silas. Something about you tells me you never possessed her; not really. I feel very, very sorry for you.” He turned and left the doorway. Silas heard his footsteps going up the stairs. For the first time since the night he had raped Priscilla, he leaned against the mantel and wept for all the wasted, bitter empty years.

 

 

Summer wound the music box and placed it on Priscilla’s pillow again, then looked around at Dr. Morgan and Mrs. O’Malley as the tune began to play. “It seems to soothe her somehow.”

Dr. Morgan sighed. “It doesn’t matter; although I’m not sure she hears it. I think she’s in a coma.”

“Oh, she hears it,” Summer said. “Her expression changes when she hears the music, almost as if she were remembering happier times.”

Dr. Morgan took off his stethoscope and shook his head. “I don’t know what’s keeping her here; sheer willpower, maybe. By all rights, she should have been dead months ago.”

Mrs. O’Malley wiped her eyes. “Angela says she’s waiting for someone.”

The three of them looked at each other. Summer searched her mind. Everyone had been to her bedside to say goodbye, although half the time, her mother didn’t seem to recognize them. One more name crossed her mind, and then she bit her lip. Maybe that man had never gotten the letter, or didn’t care enough to come. Maybe her mother had even forgotten him—that lost love. It had been a rash act on Summer’s part to write him; her father would be furious if he knew.

. . . ’Tis the last rose of summer, left blooming alone, all her lovely companions are faded and gone; I’ll not leave you, lone one to pine on your stem, where the lovely are sleeping, go sleep you with them. . . . It had gradually run down. The silence seemed almost to shout. Summer looked at the music box, then toward the window. It was snowing, such a bad, miserable night for early April. Priscilla had hated cold weather; it killed her flowers.

She heard the slightly ajar door creak and turned as a man came in.

“I followed the music,” he said. “I’m—”

“I know who you are,” Summer said, and she smiled with relief. “Oh, I knew you from her description. Come in, but don’t expect much; she’s in a coma.”

He came to the bedside, so handsome and tall, snowflakes still clinging to his coat. The armful of roses scented the room until abruptly it smelled like a summer night in a garden.

Summer stepped away from the bed so he could come closer. He hesitated; then hands trembling, he laid the armful of roses on Priscilla’s pillow next to her face, staring down at her. “Priscilla? Priscilla, my love, it’s Shawn; can you hear me? I’ve come back, just like I always said I would. I brought you roses, me darlin’, pink and burgundy, but with one yellow rose for remembrance.”

He reached over, and Summer noted that his hands trembled as he wound the music box, opened it and it began to play. “Remember, darlin’? I didn’t think you’d save my little gift all these years. Remember that summer night in your father’s garden?”

Summer could only imagine what had happened that warm night. She blinked rapidly to keep the tears back. This was no time to break down.

As the tune played, Shawn took Priscilla’s frail hand between his two big ones and talked earnestly to her in a whisper as if the two were alone. The whole room smelled of roses.

Gradually, Priscilla’s eyes opened, and she smiled.

“Priscilla? It’s Shawn. Do you know me, love?”

Priscilla looked around the room. Slowly, things came into focus. Who were all these people? The white-haired man and the plump woman seemed vaguely familiar, and that blond girl standing at the foot of the bed with tears running down her face looked exactly like herself. Maybe she was looking into a mirror.

Roses. She smelled roses; and her favorite tune was playing somewhere. Such memories it brought back. She closed her eyes. Once again she was in her father’s garden, lying under the rose bushes with a young man not much older than herself. Petals fell on their faces as they pledged eternal love. However, the time came when she had to make a choice, and she had made the wrong one. She had always hoped she would get a second chance. Oh, all these long, long years she had prayed for it! So many times people made the wrong choice and wanted to go back and do it again, correct that mistake.

A voice seemed to be coming to her from a very great distance. “Priscilla, it’s Shawn. Do you know me, love?”

She opened her eyes again and tried to focus her vision on a handsome older man who held her hand and spoke earnestly to her. No, it couldn’t be Shawn; although there was a resemblance, so it might be Shawn’s father. Her Shawn was young, not more than nineteen or twenty, while this man must be almost fifty with gray streaks in his hair.

“Priscilla?”

No, he couldn’t be Shawn, although he certainly sounded like him. Perhaps someone was playing a trick on her. Oh, where had all the years gone? Could a quarter of a century really have slipped away? She turned her head and looked toward the door. Yes, it was there, waiting.

Shawn’s voice. “What is she looking for?”

“Her suitcase,” the girl who looked like her said. “We don’t know why; but she keeps packing up to leave, and no one knows where she thinks she’s going.”

Of course no one knew; it was a secret between Priscilla and her lover. She smiled and managed to turn her head to look out the window. It was snowing outside, the flakes white against the darkness of the night. Yes, she needed that suitcase; tonight she was running away with Shawn O’Bannion, defying her father, who wanted her to marry that brash Silas Van Schuyler.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath of the scent of roses and listened to the music. She was ready to go; she had only been lingering to make sure he would be there waiting. For a long moment, she was not sure she could take another breath; it was so difficult.

“Priscilla, I’ve come; I—I always loved you so.” His voice was soft and so familiar, but he sounded as if he were crying. The hand gripping hers felt so comforting. She was scared; she didn’t want to go alone into the cold night.

“I knew you would come,” she whispered. “I’ve waited so long.”

“What did she say?” the girl who looked like her asked.

No one answered, but Priscilla could hear someone weeping softly. Snowing outside. Her bag was packed. Shawn would be waiting under the street lamp outside her father’s house. Tonight they would run away together and never, never be separated again. Once before she had faced this choice and had hesitated; too weak, too scared to pick up that suitcase and go down to him, turn her back on the life she had. As clear as yesterday, she remembered standing at her upstairs bedroom window looking down at the young man under the street lamp. He had stood there for hours, his shadow distorted against the white snow. Finally, he had seemed to realize that she had made her choice; she wasn’t coming. Shoulders slumped, her lover had turned and trudged away into the darkness.

She had never told anyone, not even her maid, about the nightmares; why she drank. Almost every night she had a dream where she relived that scene over and over and over. In her tormented sleep, she changed her mind, grabbed her bag and ran down the stairs and out into the cold, crying his name and looking for him. She ran and ran through the snow, the cold wind cutting into her face, but the streets were dark and deserted; he was nowhere to be found, and she was so alone and afraid. She would wake up sobbing, sit up in bed and know she was in Silas Van Schuyler’s big home and she had thrown away her chance to have the man she loved.

Tonight was going to be different; she knew it somehow. Tonight that young man from her past would be waiting to welcome her. She had held on_c even though it was so very hard, until he could come.

She took a breath, forgot to breath, struggled for another. That hand held on to hers, and Shawn’s dear voice whispered, “It’s all right, Priscilla; I’m here. You’re not alone. You hear me, love, everything’s all right now.”

Permission. She had permission to leave. The dream began again, just as it always did. It seemed she was picking up her suitcase and staring out at the storm. She was eighteen years old, and she was supposed to marry that older man her father had chosen. She wanted a chance to change that decision she had made.

A poem. Bits and pieces of a favorite poem came to her: . . . God pity them both and pity us all who vainly the dreams of youth recall, for of all the words of tongue or pen; the saddest are these: it might have been. . . .

Oh, no, she was getting a second chance to right things. Once again she was running down the snowy street with her suitcase, calling his name, so alone, so afraid in the deserted darkness as she searched the shadows for him. Oh, surely this time. . . .

The doctor’s voice: “I think she’s going now.”

Going? Of course she was going; how could these people be so stupid? She wouldn’t even attempt to explain. She opened her eyes and saw the plump man with the stethoscope standing near the foot of her bed. Who was that man and how had he gotten into her dream? Women were crying in the background. Priscilla closed her eyes again, annoyed. How could they be so selfish and not want her to leave when she had waited so very long for this moment?

She smelled roses and heard a music box playing. Roses in the wintertime? Now she was on the sidewalk again, so alone and afraid. Shawn . . . where are you? I’ve looked and looked. . . .

“I’m here, Priscilla.” Yes, that familiar voice and his hand on hers. Why did he sound as if he were crying? Why, joy, of course; sheer joy. All these years and finally the two young lovers were going to be reunited. Yellow roses for remembrance.

She had waited for this moment all this time, and just as she had always dreamed, he had come back. She was out in the darkness searching, but his hand was holding hers and his dear voice whispered that he loved her. This dream was going to end differently tonight. Tonight she wouldn’t wake up weeping in a big empty bed because she had searched and searched and couldn’t find him.

Shawn? She whispered his name in her mind because it took too much effort now to say it. Shawn? It seemed to echo around her as if she were running down the deserted dark street through the snow calling his name. Shawn? Oh, wait for me, I’ve changed my mind! Can’t we go back a quarter of a century and do this all over again? Shawn?

And abruptly, he seemed to step out of the shadows of the buildings, and he was twenty years old and he loved her. Priscilla? I thought at first you weren’t coming.

She was eighteen years old with her whole life ahead of her all new and fresh and not used up. I love you, Shawn O’Bannion, and I have waited all these years for you. She flung herself into his arms, and he held her close and kissed her just as all the times he had kissed her in her memory. Oh, she had waited so very long for this reunion. Suddenly it was summer again, and he was kissing her; their music box was playing, and she smelled roses . . . roses . . . roses. . . .

 

 

“She’s gone.” Summer watched Dr. Morgan lean over her mother’s frail form, then step back. “I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Summer felt nothing at all as the big grandfather clock downstairs began to boom out the hour. She had been watching her mother fighting for breath these last few minutes. Now she felt unusually calm and at peace. After all these weeks, it was finally over. She came to the bedside and saw the slight smile on Priscilla’s features. She looked happy for the first time that Summer could remember.

Shawn O’Bannion hid his face against the coverlet, and his shoulders shook. Summer reached out and put her hand on his shoulder. “It was you,” she said, “she was waiting for you.”

He seemed to pull himself together, stood up very slowly, and crossed himself, looking down at Priscilla’s still form. “I wonder what it was she experienced those last few seconds?”

“I suppose we’ll never know until we experience it ourselves.” Summer was suddenly weary. She didn’t feel sadness or loss, only exhaustion and relief that it was finally over. She looked toward the suitcase and wondered why Priscilla had kept it packed? Where did the frail invalid think she might be going? Perhaps that was one mystery they would never solve, and maybe it didn’t matter.

She was too numb and too ill herself to feel much of anything. She was vaguely aware that Mrs. O’Malley crossed herself and sobbed as she moved to cover the mirrors in the room.

Dr. Morgan said, “My deepest sympathy; I’ll take care of things. Do you want to be the one to tell your father?”

Father. Oh, yes, there were others outside this room. For a few moments, everything else had ceased to exist.

Shawn straightened his shoulders and cleared his throat. “Thank you for contacting me so I could get here in time.”

“Thank you for coming,” Summer whispered, “and giving her permission to go.”

His green eyes welled over again. “You might have been our daughter, if only . . . well, those are the two saddest words in any language, aren’t they?” He thought a moment. “And the four saddest are: ‘it might have been.’ ”

He had regrets, too, Summer thought. She reached to hand him the music box. “She would want you to have this. I’m so glad you got here in time.”

He clutched it to him like a drowning man. “I—I’ve made a mess of my life, always comparing every woman I met to Priscilla, putting her memory on a pedestal. In my mind, she became the most beautiful, most desirable prize to be won in this whole world.” He looked toward the bed and sighed. “Somehow, I expected her to look just as she had all those many years ago.”

“Perhaps she thought the same,” Summer said, “both of you trying to hang on to a moment frozen for eternity in your past.” She put her hand on his arm, felt him trembling.

“Such a damned shame,” he murmured again, and she was not sure if he spoke to her or himself, “married a girl just because she looked like Priscilla, then hated her because she wasn’t. No other woman could live up to that first love’s memory; that once in a lifetime love.”

Summer felt tears come to her eyes. A once in a lifetime love. Where was Iron Knife tonight? She felt ill and lonely and sad. If she let herself, she could dissolve into hysterics, and there were things to be done; there were always things to be done when someone died. “Do you need me to see you out?”

Shawn took a long look at her. She might have been his daughter if Priscilla had made a different decision. He shook his head. “No, I—I’ll be okay.”

A burden seemed to have been lifted off his shoulders. Still clutching the music box, he went down the stairs. Savannah. He hadn’t done right by his wife; he realized that now. He had not loved the spoiled blond beauty; he had married her because she looked like Priscilla. Maybe they could yet make a fresh start; give the marriage a second chance. Why, he’d even be polite to her brother, Beau, who was such a scheming ne’er-dowell. That rascal had had free rein with Shawn’s wealth and plantation these past four years; but he’d overlook that for Savannah’s sake. Yes, Shawn was willing to try again if Savannah was. He paused in the hallway and stared at the big grandfather clock. Strange, it had stopped; the pendulum was still.

A young girl who looked like Summer came out of the library carrying a black cat, paused, and stared at him. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

Such strange eyes—blue and cold as a glacier—but such a beauty. He tried to think of a way to soften the blow; no words came. Shawn just nodded.

“I knew it”—the girl smiled ever so slightly—“I knew the moment it happened.”

“How—how did you know?”

She shrugged. “There was a rush of wind and the flames in the fire flickered. The clock stopped in mid-chime.” She glanced up at it. “It won’t ever run again.”

There was something eerie about this child who seemed to have her mother’s looks and her father’s hardness. Without thinking, Shawn crossed himself with his free hand. “Tell your father I’m sorry. We will never meet again.”

He turned and went to the big front door where the butler waited. Already servants were scurrying through the house covering mirrors, doing whatever needed to be done. Shawn went out the door into the cold. He stood there a long moment before he started down the drive. The wind bit into his face, and the frozen snow crunched beneath his boots. He at least had her music box, but Silas had her children. The man was lucky in more ways than one; Shawn had fully intended to kill Silas tonight as he left the mansion. Now he paused out on the vast lawns, took out his handgun and threw it as hard as he could with his crippled hand, watching with satisfaction as it disappeared into the shrubbery.

Another chance. Maybe, even though they had made such a mess of their lives, he and Savannah and their young son could start over, find a little happiness. Shawn vowed at that moment that he was going to return to Shannon Place and talk to his wife; really talk to her. Maybe they could make a fresh start. What a fool he had been to be in love with a dream all these empty years.

He crossed himself and felt at peace for the first time in a long, long time as he turned and walked away from the mansion, hailing a hansom cab to take him to the station.