“Dear?”
Seated on a stool in the garden, Diana glanced up from the canvas she was painting upon.
Her mother held out a pair of spectacles. “Have you seen the gold chain for my eyeglasses? The one with the glass stones. I thought I left it on my dresser, but it isn’t there.”
“The chain Father gave you? No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen it. Did you ask Liz?”
“Yes, I’ve asked her already. And Joan, Mrs. Cuddy, Mrs. Brown, and Upchurch. None of them recall seeing it anywhere.”
Diana stood. “Perhaps it fell behind the dresser. I’ll go look for you.”
“Don’t trouble yourself, dear. Liz already did that. She crawled around on her hands and knees and looked behind everything in my bedchamber.” Her mother took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Maybe I lost it on our picnic yesterday. I hope not.”
“I can ask Tyson to go there to look when he returns.”
“He wouldn’t be likely to find it. It’s such a delicate chain and the grass was so long.”
“He could still try. The chain is dear to you.”
Her mother walked closer. “I’m glad to see you painting again. It seems a long while since you picked up a brush.”
“It has been.” Diana turned toward the canvas on the easel. The rich colors—splashes of greens, blues, reds, purples, and yellows—made her feel happy. Or perhaps they merely reflected the happiness she already felt. “There was something about the flowers this morning that called for me to try to capture them.”
“I believe I’m a little jealous. Your father had a head for business. You have an eye for beauty. I’ve never seemed to excel at anything.”
Diana leaned near, holding palette and brush to one side, and kissed her mother’s cheek. “You excelled at loving us both.”
“Yes.” Her mother smiled. “But that was entirely too easy to count.”
Diana considered reminding her mother of the times, especially as a teenager, when she’d been determined to have her own way. Headstrong. Opinionated. Willful. But she let it go. Her mother beheld the past through the proverbial rose-colored glasses. There was no point arguing with her.
“Well, I will leave you to your colorful creation.” Gloria turned and followed the stone pathway back to the house.
Alone again, Diana recalled the reason she hadn’t picked up her paintbrushes in so long.
Brook had come to call upon her, early in their acquaintance, before either of them would have considered it a courtship. He had seen her easel, set up in the parlor of the house she and her mother rented, and had moved to look at her work. “It’s good for a woman to have something to occupy her hands, whether or not she has any talent for it.”
She frowned at the memory. The words had stung at the time. She’d put away her art supplies that day and had left them to gather dust for the past couple of years. Brook hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings, she’d thought at the time. Even now, she wanted to believe he hadn’t meant to hurt her. Except other instances of Brook’s cutting comments began to come to her, one after another, until she could deny the truth no longer.
Why had she chosen to ignore the unkindness of his words? It wasn’t as if she’d been a stranger to such things. Her father-in-law had been quite gifted in that regard. So why hadn’t she spoken up for herself? Why hadn’t she demanded caring treatment from the man she planned to wed?
Frowning, she wrestled with the questions until she came upon what she thought might be the reason: she hadn’t thought herself worthy of his kindness. Why should she? She hadn’t been able to keep Tyson from leaving her. Her husband had been willing to get himself killed in a war rather than be with her. Why should she have expected better treatment from Brook or any other man?
At the root of it, self-pity. It wasn’t a flattering truth.
From close behind her, Tyson said, “I was told there’s a talented artist in the garden.”
A small gasp of surprise escaped Diana’s throat as she twisted on the stool.
“I see your mother didn’t exaggerate.”
She drew a quick breath and strove to make her reply sound light and amused. “Of course she exaggerated. She is my mother.”
“And I’m your husband, and I say she’s correct.” He gestured toward the painting. “Look at the way you’ve created depth with those brushstrokes there. And see how you’ve used light and shadows there. I may not be an expert, but I recognize a talented artist’s work when I see it.”
Heat rose in her cheeks, and she couldn’t decide if it was caused by embarrassment or pleasure. More confusion. It seemed she lived in a confused state much of the time. Especially when it came to Tyson. She’d lost her grip on the anger, and without it, she felt more vulnerable than ever before. How could she remain aloof to his charms? How could she keep him from meaning more to her than he ought? She must be resolved to keep him at arm’s length. She must—
He spoke again, intruding on her thoughts. “I’m taking Ned to look for Mrs. Kennedy. Would you like to come along?”
Her resolve went right out the window. “Yes, I would.”
For Ned. She would go along for the sake of the boy and for no other reason. She didn’t want to lose Ned, and she might be needed if they found Mrs. Kennedy. Although why, she couldn’t say.
She glanced down at the cotton coat she wore over her gown. “I will need to put my paints away and tidy up before we leave.”
“I could put these things away for you. If you’ll trust me with them.”
I think I can trust you with art supplies, Tyson. It’s trusting you with my heart that frightens me. She looked up again—and was grateful his eyes were on the canvas.
“I shan’t be long.” She offered him the pallet smeared with oil paint.
He took it from her and she hurried down the path.
Tyson watched his wife’s departure, encouraged because she didn’t seem to be fleeing his presence, as had been the case so often over the past month.
Maybe we’re making progress again. Maybe she’s forgiven me.
Let it be so, Lord.
It took three trips to move the easel, canvas, stool, and paint supplies from the garden into the house. Rather than ask one of the servants to put the items away, Tyson decided one of the empty bedchambers should be designated as Diana’s art studio. He selected the blue bedroom because of the sunlight that spilled through the windows in the mornings and hoped the idea would please her. By the time he came down the staircase for the third time, Diana and Ned were awaiting him in the entry hall.
The fineness of the day allowed the use of the open carriage, which also made it easier for Ned to direct the coachman. The boy called for a few turns that later had to be corrected. Tyson wasn’t surprised. Much had changed in the four years since Ned was orphaned. New homes had been built. New streets had been created.
“Stop!” Ned cried, pointing. “That’s it. That’s where we lived.”
The two-story house had an outside stairway to its second level. The paint looked new, and the yard was groomed. Flowers bloomed in profusion from public sidewalk to front door.
“Are you certain?” Tyson asked. For some reason, he’d believed Ned’s mother had come from the working poor. This house was nicer than anticipated. Not in a wealthy part of the city but well built and well kept.
“‘Course I’m sure.”
Tyson looked at Diana. “Perhaps you two should wait in the carriage while I inquire.”
She nodded her agreement.
Tyson stepped to the ground and strode up the walkway where he rapped three times on the door. He was about to try again when he heard a sound from inside. Then the door opened.
The woman who looked out at him was bowed at the shoulders, as if she were folding in upon herself. Her hair was a mass of white curls, her face deeply etched by time. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you, madam, but I’m looking for a Mrs. Kennedy.”
Wariness filled her pale blue eyes, and Tyson suspected she rarely had anyone come to her door.
“Are you she?”
“I’m Mrs. Kennedy,” she answered at last. “What do you want?”
He glanced toward the second-story window, then back at the woman. “Did a boy named Ned live in this house with his mother about four years ago?”
“Why?” Her eyes narrowed even more. “Who are you?”
“Mrs. Kennedy, my name is Applegate. Tyson Applegate. A boy known as Ned has come under my protection. My wife and I wish to learn whatever we can about his mother in case we might locate other members of his family. He remembers this as the house where they lived before his mother died. He said a woman named Mrs. Kennedy took him to the orphanage.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the carriage and stepped to one side. “That’s him, there, with my wife.”
“Well, I’ll be,” the woman said softly, suspicion gone. “Even with my old eyes I recognize him. It’s Aileen’s boy, all right. I’m sure of it.”
“Aileen what, may I ask?”
“Macartan. Odd name, I always thought. Aileen and Ned Macartan.”
“Was there a Mr. Macartan?”
She shook her head. “Someone did that poor girl very wrong, though she never told me who it was. She worked as a live-in housemaid, and the son of the household got her in the family way. She thought he’d marry her like he promised, but the family tossed her out on the street as soon as she began to show.”
An old and all too familiar story.
“Would you like to come in and set a spell? It’d be good to see a mite closer how the boy’s grown up.”
Tyson nodded, then motioned for Diana and Ned to join him. When they reached the stoop, Tyson introduced his wife. Ned tucked himself slightly behind Diana, as if suddenly unsure. Then the three of them followed the older woman inside.
The front parlor of the house was small and packed with aging furniture, leaving little room to move about. Knickknacks filled the mantle and table tops. The air was stuffy. A thick layer of dust covered every surface.
Mrs. Kennedy sat on a rocking chair and waved Ned closer. “Come here, boy, and let me have a look at you.” Her eyes moved up and down the length of him. “Do you remember me?”
Ned’s familiar bravado returned. “‘Course I do.”
“Little on the thin side, aren’t you?”
He shrugged.
The woman looked at Diana, seated on the small sofa. “Near broke my heart to have to take him to the orphanage after his ma died. I’ d’ve liked to keep him here with me, but I’ve got little enough to live on. And I’m no family to him.”
“I understand,” Diana replied.
Tyson, standing next to the sofa, placed a hand on her shoulder and lightly squeezed it.
Mrs. Kennedy’s gaze returned to Ned. “How is it you came to be with this fine gentleman and lady?”
“I fell off a crate.”
“Pardon me?”
Tyson smiled. “It’s somewhat of a convoluted tale.”
“Sounds like.”
Diana leaned forward. “Mrs. Kennedy, is there anything still here in your home that once belonged to Ned’s mother? Something you couldn’t entrust to a six-year-old’s care? Something that might help us discover any family?”
The woman’s face crinkled as she gave the question some thought. At last, her eyes widened. “Saints alive! There were some things. Several books. A couple of photographs. A few clothes and hair doodads. I put them all in a trunk and stored them in the attic when the orphanage didn’t ever come for them. Forgot all about it.”
With hope evident in his voice, Ned asked, “Is there a picture of my ma?”
“Not sure. I think so but it’s been a long time since I closed that trunk, and my heart was right sore at the time.” She rocked the chair forward and pushed herself up. “If you’ll follow me, Mr. Applegate, we’ll find that trunk and you can take it with you. Belongs to Ned, the trunk and whatever’s in it.”
During the drive home, Diana surreptitiously watched Ned, but she needn’t have been careful. The boy kept his gaze fastened on his knees the entire way home, his mouth pressed into a thin line. Anxiety, no doubt, over what he would find in that trunk.
She suffered her own bout of nerves. What if there was something in there that would cause Ned to leave their home, to go away, to be taken away? It made her wish they’d never gone looking for Mrs. Kennedy. Maybe they didn’t need answers about Ned’s family. Maybe they’d overreacted to Mr. Michaels’ questions outside the church.
Releasing a breath, she gave her head a slow shake before turning her eyes toward the houses that lined the street. No, they hadn’t overreacted. Hiding from the truth helped no one. Least of all Ned.
The carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Applegate home. Tyson stepped to the ground, then helped Diana do the same. After Ned hopped out, Tyson grabbed the trunk and carried it up the walk, not waiting for one of the servants to do it for him. Diana followed behind while Ned ran ahead.
“Want the trunk in the parlor?” Tyson asked, glancing back at Diana.
“No. Take it up to Ned’s room.” Whatever they were about to discover, she preferred they discovered it away from the eyes of the servants.
He nodded.
Upchurch had the door open before they reached the front porch. He nodded to Tyson, but he wore the hint of a smile when he looked at Diana. “It seems your expedition was successful, Mrs. Applegate.”
“It would seem so, Upchurch.” Although she wasn’t convinced yet that it was cause to celebrate.
With some reluctance, she climbed the stairs and stepped through the doorway into Ned’s room. Ned’s room. Odd, wasn’t it, how quickly this small bedchamber with the white walls and simple decor had become this boy’s.
Tyson had set the trunk in the middle of the room. The battered-looking black chest had two brown leather straps holding the top closed, and Ned was undoing them, slowly but steadily. Diana held her breath as she waited. Was Ned doing the same? Was Tyson?
The hinges squeaked their complaint as Ned pushed the lid upright. After a moment, he knelt down on the rug, reached inside, and withdrew something. A framed photograph.
“It’s my ma,” Ned said in a whisper.
Tears sprang to Diana’s eyes.
“I forgot how pretty she was.” Ned wiped his nose with his right forearm while holding up the frame with his left hand. “See?”
The young woman in the photograph had thick, dark hair swept back from her face and piled atop her head. A high velvet collar encircled her throat. The bodice was light in color, decorated with lace and ribbons. She was turned to one side, not quite full profile, and she wore the hint of a smile.
“She was very pretty, Ned,” Diana answered.
“Wish I’d had this with me all the time, but I suppose it might’ve gotten lost, all the movin’ around I’ve done.”
Diana held out a hand. “May I?”
After a slight hesitation, Ned gave her the photo and frame. She walked to the tall chest of drawers and set it on the top. “There. Now you can see it first thing in the morning. All right?”
“Yeah. I like it up there.”
Tyson stepped closer to the trunk. “Let’s see what else is inside, shall we?”
Over the next few minutes, Ned withdrew one item after another, looked at it, inspected it, laid it out on the floor for Tyson and Diana to see too. There were two more photos, but without frames—one of Aileen holding Ned when he was a toddler of perhaps two years and another of her as a girl of about fourteen with a boy perhaps two years older, the two of them standing in front of a stone cottage. The young man bore a striking resemblance to Aileen. He had to be her brother.
Diana said, “I’ll get you frames so you can put them beside the other photograph, if you like.”
“But I don’t know who he is,” Ned answered, pointing at the photograph of his mother and the young man.
“He’s your family. We know that much. Probably your uncle. He looks like both you and your mother.”
“I guess. Still don’t know his name or nothin’.”
Next in the trunk were some clothes: two dresses, one black and one gray, complete with white cuffs and collar; two white aprons; one pair of black shoes; and one white cap. A parlor maid’s wardrobe. Diana assumed the woman had been laid to rest wearing her best dress. Perhaps the one in the portrait on the dresser.
Finally, there were nearly a dozen books—all of them novels—lining the bottom of the trunk. Treasured items, Diana was certain, for a woman who had been poor. But for Aileen’s son, who hadn’t yet learned to read, they were of little interest.
“May I look at them?” Diana asked.
He shrugged. “If you want.”
She picked them up one at a time, looking at the covers and the spines, opening each one to see that Aileen had written her name on the inside covers. The young woman’s favorite author seemed to have been Henry James; there were four of his novels. There were two Mark Twain novels. Diana remembered Tyson favored Twain; perhaps Tyson might read to Ned from one of them. The remainder of the novels were by Lew Wallace, Thomas Hardy, and Robert Lewis Stevenson.
Aileen Macartan had been from the working class, most likely without much formal education, but she had not been illiterate.
Diana’s gaze lifted from the books to the photograph on the dresser. I will make certain Ned learns to read, she silently promised the woman. I will teach him to treasure these books because you treasured them. And I will treasure him as if he were my own son. I promise.
Late that evening, after the house had grown quiet, Tyson walked down the hall from his bedroom and knocked on Diana’s door.
“Yes?”
“It’s Tyson. May I come in?”
There was a pause, then, “Just a moment.”
He heard her moving around inside.
“All right. You may come in.”
Diana was seated on the stool in front of the small vanity. Over a cream-colored nightgown she wore a soft green dressing gown. Her hair fell loose about her shoulders and down her back. The reason for his visit to her room was forgotten. All he could think was how beautiful she was and how much he wanted to take her into his arms and kiss her and make love to her. Real love. Not with the selfishness of the past.
She rose from the stool. “What did you want, Tyson?”
He swallowed, hard, fighting the desire. If she saw what he felt, it might frighten her. It might destroy any trust she’d begun to feel with him. He couldn’t risk that.
He cleared his throat. “About Ned.”
“What about him?”
“I’ll need to hire someone to look into his mother’s family. We have her last name and we believe she had a brother. That’s a good start.”
Her eyes grew misty. “What if we find his family and they want to take him away?”
“It would be their right.”
“I know.” She walked to the open window. A night breeze lifted strands of her hair.
“We have to try, Diana. It’s the right thing to do.”
“I know,” she repeated softly.
He longed to go to her, to hold her, to comfort her. Instead he reached for the door.
“We might have had a son. You and I.”
He froze, his hand on the doorknob, and glanced over his shoulder.
“I was pregnant when you left me.”
Shock made him forget to breathe.
She turned to look at him. “I lost the baby.”
“Diana, I … I never knew.”
“Of course you didn’t know. How could you know? You weren’t there with me, were you? You didn’t write to me.”
Her words cut with the precision of a scalpel.
“I wanted your baby, Tyson. I still loved you then, and I loved that baby we made together. But I guess he didn’t want me either.”
“Diana, don’t say—”
“Why shouldn’t I say it? It’s the truth.”
He saw it then, more clearly than before. He saw the depth of the hurt he’d caused her, and he hated himself for it. A baby. Perhaps a son. And he’d never known. She’d had to face the loss alone.
And now she’s afraid she’ll lose Ned. Because of me.
He shortened the distance between them, drawing close but not close enough to touch her. He didn’t trust himself that much. If he got too close, he would take her into his arms, and he sensed that would be a mistake.
“Diana, I may not know much about such things, but I know you didn’t lose the baby because he didn’t want you.”
Her shoulders rose and fell on a shuddered breath.
“And you were never at fault for the things I did or didn’t do either. You were an innocent victim of my anger at my father, my resentment toward the life he wanted for me, my complete selfishness. I’ve said I’m sorry, but I know words don’t mean much in a situation like ours. Especially when the hurt goes as deep as yours. Especially with the loss you’ve known. I would undo it all if I could. I would wish you married to a man you could respect and love and trust. A man who never would hurt you as I have.”
There seemed to be a question in her eyes as she looked at him. He waited for her to ask it, but she remained silent.
“But I can’t undo it. Not any of it. No matter how hard I try, I can’t change the past.”
“I know,” she whispered.
He reached out, still wanting to touch her, then lowered his arm again. “We could change our future. If we both try, we could make it better.”
“Could we?”
“Yes. If we want to. If we both want to.”
“I suppose we could.” She turned toward the window again. “If we wanted to.”
He opened his mouth, but instinct warned him she’d heard all she could handle for now. He swallowed more words of apology, more attempts to make amends, another try to plead his case, to beg her forgiveness. Finally, he said, “Good night, Diana.”
“Good night, Tyson.”
Strangely enough, her simple farewell made him hopeful as he left her room.
September 1897
Tyson sat in a pew and stared at the magnificent stained-glass window at the far end of the sanctuary. Something stirred inside of him. Something that had been stirring inside of him for a long while.
He’d left behind the last of his friends and acquaintances and had been traveling alone through Europe for many weeks. And wherever he’d found a cathedral, he’d stopped and spent time sitting in shadowy silence, waiting for something, though he knew not what.
Empty. He was so empty. And useless. He was thirty years old but had accomplished nothing of any merit. For the past four years, he’d wandered aimlessly from country to country. Why? Nothing he saw satisfied him anymore. No one he met amused him anymore. He was empty. He was lost at sea, a ship without a rudder.
Pressing his forehead against the back of the pew in front of him, he whispered, “God, help me.”
But he had no reason to believe God would hear and answer his prayer.