34
EFFIE
June 1901
THE TOWN OF SHEPHERD had changed.
Effie sat beside Polly on the veranda and stared out over the town before them. The cobblestone street, the trees lush with leaves, the flower gardens in bloom. Polly was a shell of herself, but today she’d asked to be carried outside. The soft perfume of the lilac bushes carried across the breeze.
But Shepherd itself was different. The town seemed softer than it had been before. Its people had somehow been humbled from the pride of lofty ambition and vain appearance when one of their own had fallen into the pit of wickedness. It was a surprise that even the newspaper failed to write about Patrick Charlemagne. Of course, it was also an odd happenstance that the Charlemagnes had purchased the paper for a rather large sum around the same time as Patrick’s being captured.
No one wanted to remember what had happened at 322 Predicament Avenue. No one wanted to know who Isabelle Addington was or where her body was buried. No one pestered Mabel Opperman about the vacant property or her son, Floyd. The James family didn’t even pursue charges against Mabel Opperman for her part in attacking Effie. Effie had asked her father not to. For Floyd’s sake.
It was as if all the changes to Shepherd took place internally, yet no one spoke about them. As if by not speaking, the bad would disappear in time, and the sun would shine once again and they could all continue, albeit a little bit less prideful, a little bit more cautious, and a little bit less likely to draw conclusions about those who weren’t like them.
But as secrets went, Polly’s life was drawing to a close. The weight on Effie’s heart threatened to break it into tiny little pieces. The James family no longer attempted to pretend or keep up appearances that all inside the manor was well. The flowers had come and now adorned Polly’s bedroom, there to encourage and uplift. Yet Effie knew that soon they would be used instead to perfume the parlor for when the neighbors visited to pay Polly their last respects.
“Death is a calming thing.” Polly’s whispered words broke into Effie’s thoughts.
“What?” Effie shouldn’t have been surprised. While Effie had grown more courageous, Polly had become more introspective. Perhaps that was the difference when one chose to live life fully and the other chose to embrace death completely.
“It’s calming,” Polly said with a soft smile on her lips. “That moment you know what is coming. There are no more questions. Just rest. And peace. And hope.”
“How do you find such peace, Polly? The adventures you wished to have had? The life you’d planned?”
Polly turned to Effie, blanket pulled high on her lap, hair hanging in a loose braid, handkerchief clenched in her thin fingers. “I have so many adventures coming, sweet Effie.” Polly smiled. “Who said they stop when a soul goes to heaven?”
“But heaven is perfect,” Effie argued. “There won’t be any mysteries to solve.”
“God is a mystery.” Polly’s laugh was weak. “It will take an eternity to understand Him.”
Silence stretched between them. A warm blanket of sisterhood. A love that was guaranteed to continue long after Polly left the world.
Effie mustered the words, and Polly seemed to know just how hard Effie was mustering. She reached across the space between them, and Effie took Polly’s hand. She looked deeply into Polly’s tired eyes.
“I will try, Polly, to be brave,” Effie promised.
“Don’t be brave.” Polly shook her head. “Be hopeful. Tears of missing someone aren’t tears that lack courage. Instead, you have the courage to feel the empty spaces, but hope for when they’ll be filled again.” Polly sighed softly, and Effie could see the physical effort it took for Polly to draw enough breath to do so. “Don’t be afraid to live, Effie. I’m not afraid to die. Fear steals our joy and is the agony of those with no hope. It will not define us. Fear is the enemy we will defeat.”
“You’re returning to England?” Effie managed to ask. She didn’t want to admit how empty she felt at the thought. As traumatic as the last few weeks had been, there was a comfort, a steadiness that Anderson had brought into her life.
Anderson nodded. “That is the plan, yes.” Cora struggled against his hold, and he reluctantly released her, setting her on a blanket on the floor, which she immediately abandoned, crawling to the window and pulling herself up by the sill. He watched his daughter for a long moment. “She needs to go home. To family. To everything England can give her. She needs to grow up near her mother’s grave and know of Laura’s legacy.”
Effie nodded, swallowing back tears she knew were selfish. Tears that betrayed the fondness she’d allowed to grow within her for the man before her. “I would like to thank you,” she said. “For everything you did to help protect Polly . . . and I as well.”
Anderson’s jaw worked back and forth, and he gave a polite smile. “Of course. It was the least I could do. And now in retrospect, I feel I owe you so much more.”
They looked at each other for a long, uncomfortable moment.
At last, Effie cleared her throat. “When do you leave?”
“Next Tuesday,” Anderson answered. He chuckled. “Then you shall be free of that horrid Englishman who has put you at risk of a sullied reputation. I do believe the town of Shepherd will move beyond it in time.”
Effie’s laugh was watery, and she hoped Anderson didn’t notice. She had once hoped for that. More than that, she ached for what she saw before her now. A man, a child, a family, a quiet future as a wife and a mother. God bless her sister, but Effie would be happy never to be independent or adventurous ever again. It had nearly gotten her killed, for pity’s sake, and for a woman who preferred Ben-Hur over that sort of fear in real life . . . well, perhaps Anderson was right. Maybe in the months to come, a young man would come out of the woodwork of Shepherd and steal her heart once and for all.
The very thought disappointed her.
Effie stood quickly, and Anderson jumped to his feet.
“I should be going.” She reached for her purse.
“Ah, yes.” Anderson gave a nod. He called for Gus and instructed the man to watch Cora and that he himself would see Effie to the door.
They moved silently together onto the porch of the little cottage.
“I suppose this is farewell then,” Effie said.
“Thank you. It’s been quite the adventure.” Effie managed a smile.
Anderson returned it.
She waited just one more second in case this English lord wanted to change his mind and say something more personal. But no. He didn’t. He was still a man grieving the loss of his wife. A man overcome with needing to invest in his daughter so he could make up for lost time.
There was no need for Euphemia James in the life of Lord Lewis Anderson Archibald Mooring of Tiffany Ridge.
She made it to the front gate and pushed it open, hearing the front door close quietly behind her. It closed on her past, and yet it felt as if the door closed on her future too.
EFFIE
Two Months Later
She sat under the willow tree, blanket beneath her. The August heat was eased by a refreshing breeze. Effie felt the most contented she had been since Polly had passed away two months before. The James manor had become a place shrouded for weeks, and though they all managed their grief in their own ways, Effie found solace here beneath the willow. Where color bloomed and sunshine made sure the earth was warm, and she could hear the echoes of Polly’s laughter floating through the clouds.
Her father had hired Floyd to help out occasionally. Word had it that Mabel Opperman was failing. Effie had never had the heart to have the old woman held responsible for Effie’s attack. She had merely been trying to protect Floyd and baby Cora, and Effie could not blame her for that. Still, she’d no desire to see the old woman. But Floyd? He was different. Even now, as he lumbered by with a wheelbarrow, she took comfort in the good that had emerged from the bad.
“Effie?”
A long shadow cast across her open book in her lap. Startled and scarcely believing, she looked up at the man who towered over her.
“Anderson!” she exclaimed.
Effie struggled to stand, her book falling to the ground. “What are you . . . why are you . . . how?” He was supposed to be in England. There was no way for him to have sailed home and returned already.
His face remained in his familiar expressionless way. But his eyes stormed and rolled like thunderclouds. She could see emotion in him again. Emotions he’d quenched and squashed deep below the surface.
“How is it you are here?” she asked again.
“I made it as far as New York.” His admission sent a delicious shiver through her.
Effie nodded only because she didn’t know what else to do, and not because she understood.
Anderson swiped his hat from his head as a belated afterthought.
“And Cora?” Effie asked politely.
“Cora is fine,” he said equally as polite.
“Gus?”
“Also well.” He mustered a thin smile and then abruptly flung his hat to the ground. He raked his hand through his hair. “Dash it all, Effie! I am not ready.”
Her eyes wide, she waited. Unsure. Unsteady really. She braced her hand against the trunk of the willow tree as Anderson stepped closer.
“I’m not ready for this.”
“For what?” she asked breathlessly.
“For you.”
“Me?”
“Us.”
“Us?”
“This.”
“What?” Effie was utterly and completely lost, if not afraid to hope.
“Dash it all,” he said again and grabbed her around the waist, hauling her against him. “I wanted to do this for far too long, but I am not ready.” And yet he was. Because he kissed her then. Under the willow tree. With no promise, no plans, just hope. And absolutely zero fear.
Effie pulled back, staring up into his eyes, searching and finding no answers. “But if you’re not ready—”
“I’m not ready for you.” A smile broke through his countenance, and it took Effie’s breath away. “At least I kept telling myself that. But then it drove me mad until Gus insisted I return. So here we are. Again.”
“But England? Your lordship. What about . . . ?”
“This is why I’m not ready.” Anderson managed a little chuckle. “I have no clear answers, but I do know this.” He tipped his head closer to hers. “I know I am not afraid to live again. I’m not afraid to grieve what I have lost, but also embrace what I’ve been given.”
“What have you been given?” Effie whispered, daring to place her palm on the side of his face.
“You,” he stated. “I do believe I have been given you.”
And he had. And she had been given him, and Cora. Though Polly was no longer here, and Anderson’s wife, Laura, had also passed away, Effie knew that together she and Anderson could journey the crevices of grief. Because in the dying, new life sprang forth. It was the bittersweet reality that for some purpose God allowed to exist—until He made all things new.