In the Garden Trilogy (27 page)

“Not so fast. If she was a servant,” Roz reminded them, “she might not have been dressed fashionably.”

“Damn.” Hayley mimed erasing a scoreboard.

“But even so, we could say between 1890 and, what, 1910?” Stella suggested. “And if we go with that, and an approximate age of twenty-five, we could estimate that she was born between 1865 and 1885.”

She huffed out a breath. “That’s too much scope, and too much margin for error.”

“Hair,” David said. “She may have been a servant, may have had secondhand clothes, but there’d be nothing to stop her from wearing her hair in the latest style.”

“Excellent.” She typed again, picked through sites. “Okay, the Gibson Girl deal—the smooth pompadour—was popularized after 1895. If we take a leap of faith, and figure our heroine dressed her hair stylishly, we’d narrow this down to between 1890 and 1895, or up to, say ’98 if she was a little behind the times. Then we’d figure she died in that decade, anyway, between the ages of ... oh, let’s say between twenty-two and twenty-six.”

“Family Bible first,” Roz decided. “That should tell us if any of the Harper women, by blood or marriage, and of that age group, died in that decade.”

She dragged it in front of her. The binding was black leather, ornately carved. Someone—Stella imagined it was Roz herself—kept it dusted and oiled.

Roz paged through to the family genealogy. “This goes back to 1793 and the marriage of John Andrew Harper to Fiona MacRoy. It lists the births of their eight children.”

“Eight?” Hayley widened her eyes and laid a hand on her belly. “Holy God.”

“You said it. Six of them lived to adulthood,” Roz continued. “Married and begat, begat, begat.” She turned the thin pages carefully. “Here we’ve got several girl children born through Harper marriages between 1865 and 1870. And here, we’ve got an Alice Harper Doyle, died in childbirth October of 1893, at the age of twenty-two.”

“That’s awful,” Hayley said. “She was younger than me.”

“And already gave birth twice,” Roz stated. “Tough on women back then, before Margaret Sanger.”

“Would she have lived here, in this house?” Stella asked. “Died here?”

“Might have. She married Daniel Francis Doyle, of Natchez, in 1890. We can check the death records on her. I’ve got three more who died during the period we’re using, but the ages are wrong. Let’s see here, Alice was Reginald Harper’s youngest sister. He had two more, no brothers. He’d have inherited the house, and the estate. A lot of space between Reggie and each of his sisters. Probably miscarriages.”

At Hayley’s small sound, Roz looked up sharply. “I don’t want this to upset you.”

“I’m okay. I’m okay,” she said again and took a long breath. “So Reginald was the only son on that branch of the family tree?”

“He was. Lots of cousins, and the estate would’ve passed to one of them after his death, but he had a son—several daughters first, then the boy, in 1892.”

“What about his wife?” Stella put in. “Maybe she’s the one.”

“No, she lived until 1925. Ripe age.”

“Then we look at Alice first,” Stella decided.

“And see what we can find on servants during that period. Wouldn’t be a stretch for Reginald to have diddled around with a nurse or a maid while his wife was breeding. Seeing as he was a man.”

“Hey!” David objected.

“Sorry, honey. Let me say he was a Harper man, and lived during a period where men of a certain station had mistresses and didn’t think anything of taking a servant to bed.”

“That’s some better. But not a lot.”

“Are we sure he and his family lived here during that period?”

“A Harper always lived in Harper House,” Roz told Stella. “And if I remember my family history, Reginald’s the one who converted from gaslight to electricity. He’d have lived here until his death in ...” She checked the book. “Nineteen-nineteen, and the house passed to his son, Reginald Junior, who’d married Elizabeth Harper McKinnon—fourth cousin—in 1916.”

“All right, so we find out if Alice died here, and we go through records to find out if there were any servants of the right age who died during that period.” Using her notebook now, Stella wrote down the points of the search. “Roz, do you know when the—let’s call them sightings for lack of better. Do you know when they began?”

“I don’t, and I’m just realizing that’s odd. I should know, and I should know more about her than I do. Harper family history gets passed down, orally and written. But here we have a ghost who as far as I know’s been wandering around here for more than a century, and I know next to nothing about her. My daddy just called her the Harper Bride.”

“What do you know about her?” Stella readied herself to take notes.

“What she looks like, the song she sings. I saw her when I was a girl, when she came in my room to sing that lullaby, just as she’s reputed to have done for generations before. It was ... comforting. There was a gentleness about her. I tried to talk to her sometimes, but she never talked back. She’d just smile. Sometimes she’d cry. Thanks, sweetie,” she said when David poured her more coffee. “I didn’t see her through my teenage years, and being a teenage girl I didn’t think about her much. I had my mind on other things. But I remember the next time I saw her.”

“Don’t keep us in suspense,” Hayley demanded.

“It was early in the summer, end of June. John and I hadn’t been married very long, and we were staying here. It was already hot, one of those hot, still nights where the air’s like a wet blanket. But I couldn’t sleep, so I left the cool house for the hot garden. I was restless and nervy. I thought I might be pregnant. I wanted it—we wanted it so much, that I couldn’t think about anything else. I went out to the garden and sat on this old teak glider, and dreamed up at the moon, praying it was true and we’d started a baby.”

She let out a little sigh. “I was barely eighteen. Anyway, while I sat there, she came. I didn’t see or hear her come, she was just there, standing on the path. Smiling. Something in the way she smiled at me, something about it, made me know—absolutely know—I had child in me. I sat there, in the midnight heat and cried for the joy of it. When I went to the doctor a couple weeks later, I already knew I was carrying Harper.”

“That’s so nice.” Hayley blinked back tears. “So sweet.”

“I saw her off and on for years after, and always saw her at the onset of a pregnancy, before I was sure. I’d see her, and I’d know there was a baby coming. When my youngest hit adolescence, I stopped seeing her regularly.”

“It has to be about children,” Stella decided, underlining “pregnancy” twice in her notes. “That’s the common link. Children see her, women with children, or pregnant women. The died-in-childbirth theory is looking good.” Immediately she winced. “Sorry, Hayley, that didn’t sound right.”

“I know what you mean. Maybe she’s Alice. Maybe what she needs to pass over is to be acknowledged by name.”

“Well.” Stella looked at the cartons and books. “Let’s dig in.”

SHE DREAMED AGAIN THAT NIGHT, WITH HER MIND full of ghosts and questions, of her perfect garden with the blue dahlia that grew stubbornly in its midst.

She heard the voice inside her head, a voice that wasn’t her own.

“It’s true. That’s true,” she murmured. “But it’s so beautiful. So strong and vivid.”

“I don’t know.” Studying the garden, she rubbed her arms as her skin pricked with unease. “Maybe I could change the plan. I might be able to use it as a focal point.”

Thunder boomed and the sky went black, as she stood by the garden, just as she’d once stood through a stormy evening in her own kitchen.

And the grief she’d felt then stabbed into her as if someone had plunged a knife into her heart.

“I can’t breathe.” She sank to her knees as the pain radiated. “I can’t breathe. What’s happening to me?”

She woke, shivering with cold, with her heart beating against the pain that had ripped awake with her.

And knew she hadn’t been alone, not even in dreams.

ON HER DAY OFF, STELLA TOOK THE BOYS TO MEET her father and his wife at the zoo. Within an hour, the boys were carting around rubber snakes, balloons, and chowing down on ice cream cones.

Stella had long since accepted that a grandparent’s primary job was to spoil, and since fate had given her sons only this one set, she let them have free rein.

When the reptile house became the next objective, she opted out, freely handing the controls of the next stage to Granddad.

“Your mom’s always been squeamish about snakes,” Will told the boys.

“And I’m not ashamed to admit it. You all just go ahead. I’ll wait.”

“I’ll keep you company.” Jolene adjusted her baby-blue ball cap. “I’d rather be with Stella than a boa constrictor any day.”

“Girls.” Will exchanged a pitying look with each of his grandsons. “Come on, men, into the snake pit!”

On a battle cry, the three of them charged the building.

“He’s so good with them,” Stella said. “So natural and easy. I’m so glad we’re living close now, and they can see each other regularly.”

“You couldn’t be happier about it than we are. I swear that man’s been like a kid himself the last couple of days, just waiting for today to get here. He couldn’t be more proud of the three of you.”

“I guess we both missed out on a lot when I was growing up.”

“It’s good you’re making up for it now.”

Stella glanced at Jolene as they walked over to a bench. “You never say anything about her. You never criticize.”

“Sugar pie, I bit my tongue to ribbons more times than I can count in the last twenty-seven years.”

“Why?”

“Well, honey, when you’re the second wife, and the stepmama on top of that, it’s the smartest thing you can do. Besides, you grew up to be a strong, smart, generous woman raising the two most handsome, brightest, most charming boys on God’s green earth. What’s the point of criticizing?”

She does you, Stella thought. “Have I ever told you I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to my father?”

“Maybe once or twice.” Jolene pinked prettily. “But I never mind hearing it repeated.”

“Let me add, you’re one of the best things that ever happened to me. And the kids.”

“Oh, now.” This time Jolene’s eyes filled. “Now you’ve got me going.” She dug in her purse, dug out a lace hankie. “That’s the sweetest thing. The sweetest thing.” She sniffled, tried to dab at her eyes and hug Stella at the same time. “I just love you to pieces. I always did.”

“I always felt it.” Tearing up herself, Stella pushed through her own purse for a more mundane tissue. “God, look at the mess we’ve made of each other.”

“It was worth it. Sometimes a good little cry’s as good as some sex. Do I have mascara all down my face?”

“No. Just a little ...” Stella used the corner of her tissue to wipe away a smear under Jolene’s eye. “There. You’re fine.”

“I feel like a million tax-free dollars. Now, tell me how you’re getting on before I start leaking again.”

“Work-wise it couldn’t be better. It really couldn’t. We’re about to hit the spring rush dead-on, and I’m so revved for it. The boys are happy, making friends at school. Actually, between you and me, I think Gavin’s got a crush on this little curly-headed blond in his class. Her name’s Melissa, and the tips of his ears get red when he mentions her.”