Windswept (34 page)

Flipping through the notes, Thurston spoke to his clerk. “Dillard, what was the point of origin of the
Marguerite Gray
?”

“Massachusetts, sir,” Dillard answered soberly. “New Bedford.” His astounded gaze remained fixed with Thurston’s on the papers the judge fanned in his hand.

By mid morning, Nora’s last day on Belle Isle stretched endlessly before her. The part of her that was terribly unhappy wanted it to end. But the hopeful part dreaded the next day when she would have to leave the island. She didn’t want to go, not feeling like this anyway. Not with her heart torn in two by the one man who filled her dreams with a future she’d believed might be hers. But Jacob had made it clear that there was no place for her in his life, and the conditions that made it so were unalterable. She couldn’t fight the phantoms of Sophie’s past. She couldn’t change what the doctors had sworn to be true.

She hadn’t seen Jacob all morning. Juditha told her he had gone to the village to await the doctor’s arrival. She hadn’t seen Harrison Proctor or Polly either. She had stared at her breakfast in total silence, completely alone in the dining room, and it looked as if that was the way she would spend her last hours on Belle Isle.

Nora went out to the garden, and crossed from one side of the flagstone terrace to the other. She looked over the island from every angle. It was indeed a beautiful place. No one would ever suspect what sadness lay beneath its landscape of brightly colored blossoms and abundant trees. If was as if a giant hand had swept the tormenting secrets of the Proctors’ past under a carpet of green grass and flowering hillsides.

The sun warmed Nora’s shoulders until a profound weariness weighed her down. An oppressive heat from the garden stones penetrated even the soles of her boots. She considered entering one of the shady groves of trees beyond the garden boundary. What did it matter now if she did? Who would care if she broke her word? The damage had already been done.

She chose a path well away from Dylan Proctor’s cottage and wandered into a thicket of leafy trees and green shrubs. Following the sound of water bubbling at the bottom of a gently sloping incline, she came upon a small stone house by a clear, narrow creek.

Analyzing its proximity to the water, Nora determined that the structure was most likely a wash house, a feature common to rural estates. Exploring the little building gave her something to do, so she proceeded to the open door. Someone was inside, and Nora immediately recognized the slight figure as Polly’s. Her sing-song voice kept time to the rhythmic sounds of washday, the wringing and slapping of laundry against a washboard. They were work sounds, comforting and normal, and Nora leaned against the cool stones to listen.

Her lackadaisical interest grew wary when she realized the maid was crooning an odd ditty that had neither familiar strains nor melodious chords. Furthermore, the lyrics were as strange as the tune. Nora listened closely to discern the words as Polly kept repeating them.

       
Heigh ho, fiddle-dee-dee,   Sir Harry knows the mother not be.   Heigh ho, fiddle-dee-dum,   Father has two sons, mother has one.

Shaking her head in bewilderment, Nora started to walk away, deciding not to interrupt Polly’s work. But she continued to mull the hypnotic lyrics over in her mind. She had only taken a few steps when icy fingers of comprehension gripped her lungs and stopped her cold in the footpath.

“…the mother not be,” she said. “Father has two sons, mother has one.” Nora whirled around, retraced her steps, and rushed into the small building.

Polly gasped and dropped the article of clothing she was washing into the stream. It ballooned out, belched with the weight of seeping water and floated out of reach of her hands. “Miss Nora,” the old lady cried, “what are you doin’ here?”

Nora dropped to her knees beside the maid. “Polly, that song you were singing just now…what does it mean?”

Polly turned ghostly pale and mumbled a few incoherent sounds before finally uttering, “N..nothin’, miss. It means nothin’ a’tall. Just some crazy ol’ words been stuck in my mind for years.”

“No, Polly, that’s not true. The words aren’t crazy at all. They tell a story. They mean something, and you must tell me. You must!”

“No, Miss Nora. I swear to you, they mean not a thing.”

Nora took the maid’s shoulders and shook her, not hard, but enough to let her know that she didn’t intend to leave the wash house without answers. “Polly, you know something. You’ve heard something. Tell me what it is. ‘The mother not be…Father has two sons, Mother has one.’ What do those words mean?”

The old maid’s mouth dropped open, and she shook her head. “No, miss, you heard wrong. I meant nothing.” She stared at Nora before uttering a small moan of surrender. Dropping from a crouching position, she sat heavily on the stones bordering the creek. “Miss Nora, I can’t tell you anything. You’ll get us in more trouble than you ever thought of.”

Nora entreated the frightened woman with her eyes. “No, Polly, no. I promise you won’t get into any trouble. If you know something about this family, about Jacob, you must tell me. Jacob will protect you. He won’t let anything happen to you. Besides, I already suspect what the words mean, and I’m not about to forget them. But it would help me so much if you would tell me the truth.”

“But Lord Proctor, he warned me if I ever told, he’d send me to Mexico without a cent, and I’d have to work in some poor village. I’d probably starve to death.” Her voice trembled, and she nearly succumbed to a fit of crying.

“I won’t let that happen, Polly. I’ll take you back with me to America before I’d let that happen. Polly, you have to trust me. There have been too many secrets on this island. Too many people have been hurt, and more will be hurt in the future. But I think you can prevent that. Polly, was Sophie Proctor Jacob’s mother?”

The maid’s resolve wilted, and she collapsed like a damp rag against Nora’s chest. Speaking her words in a choked whisper, she said, “It has gone on too long, Miss Nora. Too, too long. Sophie was only Dylan’s mother. Jacob’s mama was a lady named Anne Hempstead. She died after giving birth to the boy.”

Nora felt as if her insides were made of the same weak stuffing as Polly’s. Her head swam with the magnitude of the maid’s confession. “Jacob doesn’t know…” she said simply.

Polly looked up into Nora’s face. “No. Lord Proctor never told him. At first Sophie didn’t want him to, but then she took with the sickness, and Lord Proctor feared they’d lose everything. When he found out the second boy, Dylan, could end up crazy as a loon, he knew his first born, his healthy son, would have to save us all. He had to let Jacob believe that he could turn out just like Sophie and Dylan.”

Nora turned away from the milky mist covering Polly’s penetrating gray eyes. She didn’t want the maid to see the revulsion in her own eyes for Harrison’s lies and the maid’s cowardice. “My God, Polly…all these years. Jacob has financed this island, his father, cared for Dylan.”

Polly gripped Nora’s arm fiercely. “But he had to, Miss Nora. There was no other way. Don’t you see? Without Mr. Jacob, we’d have all been lost. That’s what Lord Proctor told me over and over. We needed Mr. Jacob’s money to survive here. Lord Proctor had to keep Jacob’s mama a secret so he’d keep bringing the money.”

If Polly really believed that, Nora couldn’t change her mind. But the perfidy of Harrison Proctor’s lies burned like fire in Nora’s chest. Such anguish he’d put his son through. Such nightmares. And for what? If Harrison Proctor had taken the time to get to know his healthy son, to really
know
him, then he would have seen that Jacob’s honor would have prevented him from forsaking the family anyway. But now… Could honor survive such treachery?

Nora forced a steady gaze to Polly’s face. “Polly, do you know if there is any proof of the boys’ births? Any records in the house?”

The maid shook her head. “I don’t know…”

“Think, Polly. Please.”

She wrung her hands in her lap and closed her eyes tightly. “There’s a desk in Lord Proctor’s library…a big, tall one with glass doors on top.”

“Yes, what about it?”

“I don’t know for sure, but he’s always told me never to lay my hands on it. Never to dust it or go near it. I’ve always wondered…”

Nora pressed her lips against Polly’s withered cheek. “Thank you.” She stood up and went to the door of the wash house. “Just to be sure, stay away from the house the rest of today. I’ll let you know what happens, when it’s safe to come back.”

Nora hurried up the footpath with Polly’s warning ringing in her ears. “Be careful, miss, if you lay a hand on that desk.”

The draperies in Harrison Proctor’s library were drawn, leaving the room in cool, gray shade. Still, Nora spotted the secretary cabinet against a wall in the farthest corner. When her eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, she examined the items inside the convex glass doors at the top of the secretary. There were family mementos, silver cups, shaving mugs, and things that had probably belonged to Proctor ancestors.

Below the curio case was a wooden slant front which could be lowered to form a writing surface, and under it, three large drawers formed a wide kettle base on carved claw feet. Nora lowered the writing area. Numerous pigeon holes produced nothing but expected quills, blotters and stationery.

“Proof of the births has to be in one of these drawers,” Nora said to herself as she opened the first one and withdrew the contents. She was careful to listen for footsteps in the hallway or for the creak of Harrison’s wheelchair. Once she’d painstakingly examined the items from the drawer, she removed it entirely from the cabinet, turned it upside down and checked the bottom for concealed papers. Nothing.

The second drawer produced similar discouraging results. Nora had so far invested a half hour of time in her search. How long would it be before Harrison retired to this very room as he did customarily each morning?

She pulled out the third drawer, set it on the carpet and removed the few items inside which turned out to be family financial records. Automatically she overturned the drawer to inspect the bottom, and that’s when she heard the faint but distinct sound of paper sliding along a wooden surface.

She turned the drawer over twice without locating the source of the sound. It was empty. There were no more papers. Yet the shuffling continued each time she moved the drawer. She set it right side up on the carpet and ran her fingernail along the bottom producing a hollow scraping sound on the thin wood. “That’s it,” she said, her heart pounding with the thrill of discovery. “A false bottom.”

Nora retrieved a letter opener from the desk and pried the bottom of the drawer loose enough to slide her hand inside. Her fingers closed around a thin sheaf of papers and she pulled it out. The musty smelling documents were yellowed with age, but the writing was still legible. Nora bit her lower lip to keep from shouting her joy. There, in dulled but readable script on two separate certificates of birth, was the evidence that Jacob and Dylan Proctor had two different mothers.

“What the devil are you doing in my library?”

Harrison Proctor’s voice sliced into Nora’s brain, and numbed her to her fingertips. She dropped the papers to her lap and shuddered at her carelessness. She’d been so jubilant over the dates and names on the forms that she’d momentarily forgotten to listen for the wheelchair.

“L..Lord Proctor,” she stammered. “I was l..looking for a b..book to read.”

His eyes bore into her until she was forced to look away. “Do you take me for a fool, you stupid girl? I can see quite clearly what you’ve done.” He pointed at the papers in her lap. “Give me those.”

Realizing the futility of her lie and the importance of her quest, Nora gathered her wits about her, snatched the papers from the folds of her dress and stood. “No, you can’t have them.”

His lips pulled into a snarl and his finger lifted from the papers to center on her face. “Hand over those papers this minute, or I swear to you, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” she blasted back. “Send me to a Mexican village where I can starve or work myself into an early grave.”

“You’ll never be that lucky, you wicked creature! I’ll send you to your grave this very day. You’ve no right to prowl about this house snooping in other people’s business like some black-hearted thief.”

She waved the papers at his face. “How dare you speak of
my
black heart? You’ve kept Jacob’s true parentage from him all these years. What kind of a father are you? How could you…”

“Shut your mouth, woman! You have no idea what you’re talking about, and you have no idea what you’ve done. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll give me those papers and keep your mouth closed for eternity about what you saw written there.”

“I will not. I won’t let Jacob go on believing in your evil lies. You sit here in your flower covered castle while Jacob risks his life in Key West to support you. And every day he is plagued with the fear, the horrible nightmares, that he will end up like his brother.”

“My son hasn’t suffered from not knowing the truth. He’s a wealthy man and lives a damn good life…” Harrison slammed his fist down on the arm of his wheelchair. “…a hell of a lot better life than I’ll ever see from this infernal contraption. You’re wasting your pity on one who doesn’t need or deserve it, you witless girl.”

“How can you possible know what Jacob’s life is like? Yes, he can walk, he can leave the island, but for what? Your lies have kept him a prisoner as surely as if he’d been locked away like your other son!”