Unspeakable (27 page)

STEELE PARKED THE CAR
and walked me to the front door. I wondered if this might be the last time I'd see him.

He handed me the keys. “I guess that's it, then.”

“I guess.”

I hadn't wanted his company, much less his friendship, and yet now, after finding and losing Faith all over again, I didn't want to let go of the only person who knew me. Though he'd bribed it from me, wrenched it from me at times, the truth was, Steele knew my story. All of it. The truth was, he was part of it now.

What does it matter? By next week, when that article runs, the
world
will know my story
.

I had hoped for so many happy endings—that Jim would have survived, that Meg would come home, that I'd find peace after meeting my daughter. But I'd been denied every one.

And now Steele was leaving. And I'd be totally alone.

“Will you be all right, Ellen?” he asked, resting his hand on my shoulder. Even now he read me like a daily.

I shrugged. “I'm just so tired of goodbyes.”

“Then let's not say it tonight.” He lifted my face and searched for a smile. “I've got a few meetings in London the next few days for that army piece. Can I see you after that?”

I nodded. “I'd like that.”

After Steele left, I opened the door, surprised by the smell of cigars wafting from within. The smell of my father. It unsettled me like smouldering hay would a filly. I wanted to bolt.

Aunt Geraldine will have a conniption, she never lets anyone smoke inside
—

And then I remembered that she was gone, that the house was his, really. Or would be soon enough. He was, after all, her only heir. I wanted to face that fact as little as I wanted to face him. But as I entered the front room, there he was reading the paper. Little did he know, I'd be in it soon. His family's shame there in black and white for all to read.

“Father?”

He lowered the newspaper and took in the state of me, rumpled and dirtied. “Lily tells me you were out with a … gentleman.” Already he'd written the story. Already he'd judged me, even before he'd accused. I hadn't seen him in nearly two years, and this is how he greeted me.

But I stood my ground. I had done nothing wrong. “A reporter, yes. From the
New York Times
.”

He snapped the paper and folded it twice. His disdain clear. “So, it appears you haven't learned your lesson, then?”

Aunt Geraldine was right. I wasn't the same girl I'd been nearly two years ago when my father had kicked me out. And my father was wrong—I had learned many lessons. One just
then in that moment. I didn't need it—his approval. Even as I stood there, a right mess before him, I realized that I didn't care what he thought.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. For he hadn't even come to his own aunt's funeral. And if he'd known I was on the
Empress
, he'd never sent word to see if I'd lived or died. Not to me, anyway.

“Mr. Cronin advised me to come and oversee the settling of the estate.” He drew on the cigar, reddening its tip.

Wasn't it just like him, to be interested now that money was involved. He was her only nephew. The sole heir. Of course he'd be getting everything.

“I've decided to let you come home, Ellen.” He seemed to be revelling in his graciousness. He took out his cigar and stared at it. “Though, I can't say I forgive you.”

“Forgive
me
?” I blurted. “You were the one who put me at the mercy of that … that scoundrel. I was sixteen!”

He glared at me. “Old enough to know better.”

I wouldn't shy from his stern look. I wasn't a child anymore. “You used me as bait—as a bribe to sell your damn horses!”

Whatever he'd expected, this wasn't it. He froze, stunned, his mouth slightly open beneath his broad moustache, his cheeks reddening beside the white rolled ends. Even if I'd exaggerated, clearly some of it rang true.

“I never—that's preposterous—” He blustered about, searching for his own truth. Finding it, he pointed at me with two fingers, cigar wedged between them. “Whatever I do—or have ever done—is for the good of the farm. For you and your mother.”

I folded my arms. His belief in that would never make it true. Not for me. Did he even notice that the farm came first? Was he even listening to himself ?

“I came to you in trouble, Father.” My eyes stung as I brought myself back to that vulnerable moment, but I wouldn't break, not now. “And you … you threw me out.”

“What choice had I?” he demanded, bolting to his feet. He spread his hands like a priest at prayer. “What choice did you leave me?” In his mind, he'd been the victim. His pride. His name. It was never about me. Even now, it wasn't.

We stood in silence.

What more is there to say? Let him read about it in the papers
.

As if sensing my resolution, he tried another tack. “I didn't come here to fight with you,” he said, trying to gain control of things. “The fact is, this house will be sold. You can't stay here. You have no choice but to come home.”

“And what about my daughter—
your
granddaughter?” Even as I asked, I knew his answer.

He blanched. “Aunt Geraldine said the baby died.”

So he has been in touch with her
.

His eyes searched the carpet for answers.

“Yes,” I said, “she told me the same thing but I assure you, Faith, Mother's namesake, is very much alive.”

Hope dared to glow inside me, burning brighter the more I drew upon it. We could live on the farm, Faith and I. I could give her the childhood I'd had. I could be the mother I'd lost. The horses, the gardens, the fields. Faith would love it there.

Uncertain, I looked at my father, trying to get a sense of him. He wouldn't do it twice, would he? Turn me away? I
didn't want to ask for his help. I didn't want him to reject me once more. But I thought of Faith. I had to ask, for her sake.

“If I come home”—I swallowed, afraid to put my hopes on him again—“can Faith come, too?”

It could work, if he said yes. I could go back to Barnardo's and tell them I wanted my daughter. That I had a home and the money to raise her well, that I was ready to be the mother she needed.

But it all depended on his being the father I needed.

He blinked once, twice, a sure sign he was deliberating. I'd seen him do it a thousand times when faced with a deal. He'd weigh his options, his risk, his costs, and take the measure of the man before him. One more blink and I knew, his mind would be made up. He'd commit one way or another, and like a horse with blinders, he would see no other path. There would be no going back.

If only Mam were here. She'd always known how to sway him. He may well have been the head of the family, but she was the neck that easily turned him this way or that. In my heart, I knew she would've welcomed us with open arms.

Would he?

My father blinked again, blind to the grey ash falling on the carpet, blind to any love for the daughter before him as he made his choice. “Absolutely not.”

Chapter Thirty-Eight

WE SAT IN THE LEATHER WING CHAIRS
on either side of the solicitor's desk, my father and I, as Mr. Cronin shuffled through my aunt's papers. Neither of us had spoken a word since last night. What more was there to say? Even now, as Cronin settled his round spectacles on his nose and muttered as he read aloud my aunt's bequeathing this and bestowing that to her nephew, I bristled at being here.

A part of me had wondered if perhaps she might have left me the house. I'd never considered it, but as I lay awake last night fearful for my future, and that of my daughter, I did dare to hope that maybe Aunt Geraldine had changed her will in the end. Maybe she thought I had matured. Maybe she felt I'd proven myself worthy. It wasn't probable, but …
possible
, at least.

“And to my nephew, Joseph Patrick Hardy,” Cronin droned on, “I leave Strandview Manor—”

My heart dropped.

“—and all of its contents, including the Ford automobile,
the antique clock, the …” Cronin rattled down the long list. My father seemed smug, as though he'd just called my bluff and won at poker.

Is that why I was here? To see him win? So that he could rub it in and prove once and for all that he held the power?

“And to my grandniece, Ellen Geraldine Hardy,” the lawyer continued, at the very bottom of the page, “I bequeath my piano and my literary legacy.” He flipped the last page over and laid the will on the desk.

So that was it. She'd left me a piano I couldn't play and books I'd never read, a whole turret stocked ceiling to floor with African non-fiction and copies of her novels. Bloody brilliant.

“Are we done here?” I stood, for I could take it no longer.

“Oh, well, yes? I suppose—” Cronin dithered about. “Just sign here.”

I did as he asked. Then turning my back to both men, I walked from the room, down the stairs, through the front door, and out onto the street. Unsure of what to do next, I simply stood on the sidewalk, heedless of the stream of people spilling either side of me. I needed air. Space. I needed to think. What now? What now?

As I looked up, I saw him watching me across the street from where he stood, motionless in a blur of rushing crowds. He wore a white shirt, sleeves rolled, a black cap on his head, suspenders holding up his brown trousers. He didn't smile or wave or move. He simply stared. And I at him.

My heart stopped.

Jim?

It couldn't be … could it?

I stepped into the street toward him, stopping as a bread van trundled by. For a moment, its hand-painted side blocked him from my sight. After it passed, he was gone—not on the curb, not in the shopfront doorways. He'd disappeared. I scanned the crowds flowing up and down on the other side of the road, the faceless strangers busy getting where they had to go, but Jim was nowhere to be seen.

And I wondered if I'd really seen him at all.

I gripped my head in both hands as a sob wrenched out. I'd already lost him twice. Once from this world, when he drowned. And then again from my heart, when I stood face to face with his wife and child. Hadn't I suffered enough? Why was my mind playing such wicked tricks on me now—conjuring his phantom? Making me see what wasn't there.

He's like old Ian's leg
, I thought, unsure if I was hearing the voice of insight or insanity.

Even as a little girl, I had always been fascinated by Ian's wooden leg. I watched him muck out the stable, groom a horse, or shift a bale of hay, amazed that he could do the work of any man. Once, I asked to see and he pulled up his pant leg to the knee. He undid the leather straps and detached the wooden contraption from his leg. It both intrigued and horrified me to see the stump, pink and scarred, skin flapped and melted over an ending where there shouldn't be one. I couldn't take my eyes off it.

“I feel it now and then, my leg,” he said. “The hairs moving on my shin. Sometimes I get an itch on my foot or swear I feel the grass tickling my toes. In those moments, I
think I'm whole and I'd never believe otherwise, if I didn't look down and see it gone—if I didn't see what I'd lost with my own two eyes. Phantom limb, that's what they call it.”

I didn't understand, not then. In fact, I wondered if he'd been kicked by the mares one too many times. But there in the front of the lawyer's, in the middle of the road, at the bottom of my hope, haunted by phantom loves and legs, I wondered if I truly had gone mad.

“Miss Ellen!” Bates put his arm around me and waved his hands at the cars honking. “What are you doing out in the middle of the road? Good heavens, you'll get yourself killed.”

As he led me back to the sidewalk, I looked over my shoulder for the ghost of a man. Sure I felt Jim watching, even though my eyes told me differently.

I get it now, Ian. I know how it feels
.