Awaken, Shadows of a Forgotten Past

by Marcia Maidana

  Mr. Vines dropped the suitcase and wrapped his bony arms around me, pulling me away before I could strike again.

  “Alex didn’t kill his wife—you did! How dare you tell me all those lies?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do. You liar. You threw the snake into the stall to scare the horse.”

  “You are crazy!” Mrs. White was determined to play innocent. I twisted to look at Mr. Vines, seeking an ally, although I knew he was too loyal to sway.

  “You know the truth. You were there. If you don’t stand up for the truth, you’re as guilty as she is,” I yelled at Mr. Vines, but he remained silent, his face hard as stone.

  “You’ve lost your mind,” said Mrs. White, trying to control her voice.

  “Yes, but unfortunately for you, I have regained it.”

  “Whatever your delusions are, you are too late. You’ll never be together. He’s almost dead.”

  “How can you be so cold-blooded? But I shouldn’t be surprised when you killed your own husband!”

  My words were a deadly stroke to her guilty conscience. I saw her sudden struggle to make sense of the impossible—make sense of me knowing the truth—make sense of who I really was.

  “You have no right to talk about Frederick. He has nothing to do with this.”

  “You killed him, didn’t you?” I could not have struck a deeper chord. Her gaze filled with sentiments which I knew all too well—keen mental suffering and loneliness.

  “No, I didn’t. I loved him. You have no idea the hell I lived in, watching the man I loved slowly dying. Every day he begged me to release him from his misery. Perhaps if we’d had the means to look for a cure, but poor folk like us, we die poor.”

  “The Sterlings would’ve been happy to help you. Why didn’t you ask them?” My voice softened. I had stopped wrestling with Mr. Vines, and his hands loosened slightly.

  “Frederick was too proper and dignified to ask for help—I would never have asked that of him. So, don’t you dare judge me! My heart died a little each time he moaned in pain, each time he cried out in the night. You can’t even begin to comprehend how agonizing it was when, forced by his hand, I mixed poison with his drink to diminish his torment.”

  “Deborah! Stop, don’t say anything else,” Mr. Vines urged.

  “Oh, now you are going to speak!” I hissed at Mr. Vines. “I thought you’d lost your tongue.”

  “Deborah, stop,” he repeated.

  “Don’t you tell me what to do—it’s a little too late for that,” Mrs. White retorted. “‘It’s a noble deed, my dear Debby, what you are doing for me. I’m sorry I’ve gotten so ill and useless. You’re young—find someone that will take care of you. Anyone should be privileged to have such a fine wife like you,’ my dear Frederick would say.” Mrs. White fought her emotions, suppressing her tears.

  In the most inner parts of myself, compassion met anger, and I felt a twinge of sympathy for her. “Perhaps, you’re right, and I don’t understand what you went through. But you understood how terrible it was to lose your spouse. Why did you kill Alex’s wife? Why?”

  “She was a rotten creature. She had it all and appreciated nothing. She treated him like her personal slave. General Sterling deserved better. My Frederick always said that he would be the perfect match for me. For years, I waited for the general. I even convinced him to move to America, hoping he would forget. But he never did, and then you came along, unearthing the past, reviving it. You gave me no choice but to finish what I started. You forced my hand.”

  I knew then that my suspicions were true. “You are poisoning Mr. Sterling. Why? He has done nothing to you.” My anger overcame my momentary flicker of empathy. I pressed forward, trying to get to her, but Mr. Vines wouldn’t allow it.

  “I’ve given him the best years of my life, yet he won’t even notice when I’m in the room. I suppose I’m not good enough for him, not pretty enough, not young enough, not rich enough! Never enough!”

  “You can’t force love. It’s not his fault. Your obsession for Alex has consumed you.”

  “Frederick said the general was the right man for me, and my Frederick was never wrong.” She tried to sound convincing, but for the first time, her tone was doubtful, insecure.

  I looked deep into her green eyes, and I saw her in all clarity. Finally, I deciphered what was hidden in her gaze, the thing which had puzzled me for so long; Mrs. White was insane.

  Her eyes raged in lunacy as she stared back at me. For an instant, swift images crossed my mind of the beautiful young Deborah, madly in love with Frederick, his gradual deterioration, her agony and desperation to help him, and his subsequent death which crushed her dreams and hopes. That traumatic event had strangled her intellectual powers and imprisoned her heart.

  “Florence, what’s the matter?” Zaira asked in alarm, briskly walking down the hall towards us. Her timely appearance calmed my emotions just enough to realize that I had wasted enough time on them. Alex needed me.

  “Let me go,” I ordered Mr. Vines.

  “Florence, are you all right? What is going on here?” Zaira stood by me, her eyes swiping over Mr. Vines questionably as he finally released me.

  “I’m fine,” I replied, my voice colorless. Instinctively my hands rubbed my arms where Mr. Vines’s hands had gripped me.

  “Come on, Deborah, let’s go,” Mr. Vines said, picking up both suitcases.

  Never breaking eye contact with me, Mrs. White took a deep breath, squared up her shoulders, and raised her chin. She interlaced her arm with Mr. Vines’s. They walked out the front door into the dark night. Part of me—the part that would have been happy to get even with Mrs. White and maybe even get in a few more satisfying blows—wanted to charge after them. But another, wiser part of my soul—that I hadn’t even been aware of until Lucca had appeared and taken me on my miraculous journey—calmly let them go. Justice could not be evaded forever. Sooner or later, in this life or another, and possibly both, Mrs. White would stand face to face with Truth, and I knew that that would be enough.

  “Florence, what just happened?” asked Zaira, intuitively hurrying to lock the door behind them.

  “I’ll explain later. Zaira, I think Mr. Sterling has been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned? Are you serious?” asked Zaira, placing the key of the front door in her apron pocket.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Entering Alex’s room was like traveling back in time again. We had never been separated; we were still in the New Forest, yet the somber atmosphere contradicted my feelings.

  I sat on the edge of his bed. Alex’s pallid countenance was heartrending to behold. There were hollows under his eyes that spoke of fatigue and strain. His had been a long, upward battle. His heart was broken, bruised, and bleeding, yet still beating, still filled with love for me.

  I took his hand in mine and shuddered at the coldness of his body. “Alex, I’m here. I’m here to stay.” I pressed my cheek to the bullet scar on his chest, which he had taken for my father so long ago. I now understood all the dreams that had haunted me; my sub-consciousness had been trying to remind me of my previous life’s memories. No wonder I dreamt about Alex’s gunshot and when I saw the scar on his chest the day of the storm, it affected me deeply. Not only did I see it in a dream, but many times back in the New Forest when I was his wife—I just couldn’t remember it then.

  His heartbeat sounded distant, dormant. “You, general, who unselfishly saved so many lives, deserve the chance to live. It’s only fair that you do.”

  “Florence, the doctor is here,” Zaira announced, poking her head through Alex’s door.

  I glanced at the clock sitting on top of the dresser. It was almost midnight. I let out a sigh of relief. “Please, show him in.”

  Zaira retreated into the hall, returning shortly after with the doctor. “I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,” she offered.

  “Very well,” I acknowledged Zaira’s comment wit
h a small nod, and said to the doctor, “Please, come in.”

  Dr. Ferns slowly came into the room carrying a brown briefcase. The few strands left of his white hair were almost invisible on his glossy scalp.

  “Doctor, I fear he has been poisoned.”

  The unavoidable concern I had by observing the doctor’s frail frame as he ambled to the bed was instantly removed when he spoke. “Yes, the young maid told me about your suspicions. We shall soon find out.” His intelligent blue eyes looked at me from behind his ancient spectacles. “Miss Contini, please explain to me all you know about his symptoms.” Taking a few medical instruments from his briefcase, he wasted no time to start the examination. “Yes, yes, very interesting,” he said in reply to my comments.

  “I’m afraid that that is all I know.”

  “Very well, this will take a while, if you don’t mind, have a seat.” Politely he removed me from his working space.

  I retreated to the back of the room and waited, watching the doctor carefully check his patient. Alex made a few soft, moaning sounds but otherwise stayed the same, inert.

  A long moment went by before the doctor informed me, “I have a partial diagnosis.” Slowly, one by one, he placed his instruments back in the briefcase.

  I left the chair to join the doctor beside the bed, my anxious gaze found his as I waited for him to diagnose Alex.

  “Without further testing I can’t be absolutely sure. But I’m afraid your assumptions are correct. Mr. Sterling has been poisoned.”

  “I can’t believe I was so blind…”

  “The signs suggest that the poison has been administered in small amounts for an extended period of time, slowly shutting down his system,” Dr. Ferns observed. “Does Mr. Sterling have any close relatives?”

  I shuddered at what his question implied. “No, he doesn’t. I’m the closest to a relative he has. We are engaged to be married.”

  “In that case, you’ll have to decide. I’m going to send his blood sample to the hospital right away, to determine if it is poison and what kind it is. But it will take time, time that we don’t have.” Dr. Ferns reached for Alex’s hand, finding his pulse. “If he is going to live, we need to administer the antidote without delay. But not knowing exactly what kind of poison we are dealing with—the medicine might help to kill him instead of healing him.”

  “It’s too dangerous…”

  “Yes, but you must consider that he will die in the next few hours if we don’t take that chance.”

  “Doctor, I can have the house searched at once. We might find the poison.”

  “I’m afraid there isn’t enough time. Every second we wait the worse he gets. We must give him the antidote immediately,” said the doctor, firmly.

  Gambling with my own soul would be much easier than making this decision. If I chose wrong, it would weigh on me for the eternities to come. I looked at Alex’s pale face, and my heart wrenched as I made up my mind. “We’ll take the chance. Give him the medicine. It’s our only hope.”

  Fr. Thompson, who had graciously driven the nuns and Dr. Ferns to Oak’s Place, left accompanied by Sister Callahan in the middle of the storm back to town.

  “I’ll take the samples to the hospital,” Fr. Thompson had kindly offered.

  “I’ll go with him to make sure it gets done without delay,” Sister Callahan added. “And I suppose in the eventuality of Mr. Sterling having been poisoned, we must alert the police.”

  The priest gave her a look of apprehension, but proceeded in a polite manner. “Yes, yes, Sister Callahan, we’ll take care of it.” Wasting no time Father Thompson had gathered his cloak and hat, and hurried out into the night followed by Sister Callahan.

  Mr. Snider, Zaira, and Granny, were determined to keep watch in the kitchen. “Miss Contini, I’ll keep the ladies company. We’ll be here if you need us. Besides, no one can sleep until the storm clears up a bit,” Mr. Snider had said in all sincerity.

  I insisted that the doctor rest in the guest room. I wanted him awake and sharp when we really needed him. “Very well,” Dr. Ferns agreed. “I’ll check on Mr. Sterling every two or three hours. Please don’t hesitate to call on me if anything seems out of the ordinary.”

  I lay in bed beside Alex to keep him warm.

  “General, you said you would always come back to me. Remember the days in Keyhaven? You promised you’d always come back. You better make your promise good now.” The rain had subsided to a faint background sound. I continued speaking to the silent Alex. “I have always loved you. Remember the first time you came to Forte Radici? When we saw each other in the green fields?” I felt the pounding of his heart become stronger. I went on…

  “Remember the night you followed me out into the gardens of the manor and forcefully kissed me? Your kiss haunted me until the night of the ball. When I saw you with Nelly, I was in a rage. Your indifference cut deep into my pride, exposing my true feelings for you. And when we ran out into Brockenhurst’s grounds, I had no other choice but to accept that I had become your prisoner. Remember all those happy weeks we spent in the flat in London amidst the war?”

  I lost myself in memories. Minutes, then hours swept by, my voice became almost inaudible, and then stopped all together.

  I awoke with a start. The silence was too thick; it was wrong. Alex lay deathly still, and when I put my hand on his chest, I gave a terrible cry, for I couldn’t feel his heartbeat. I ran into the corridor shouting for Dr. Ferns.

  Zaira, Granny, and Mr. Snider were the first ones to meet me in the dim light of the hall.

  “What is the matter, child?” Granny asked.

  “Alex’s heartbeat is gone. We need Dr. Ferns.”

  “I’ll get him.” Mr. Snider rushed to the guest’s room.

  “Turn on all the lights,” I instructed, as we desperately entered Alex’s chilly room. Zaira and Granny had the wall sconces illuminated in no time. I gasped at the sight of the white, frigid figure on the bed.

  How could I have fallen asleep? My eyes burned, tears surfacing.

  The doctor was swift to respond, as Mr. Snider trailed behind. Dr. Ferns’s ability to react, compelled by urgency, was admirable.

  “Quick, turn him onto his stomach, we need him face down,” Dr. Ferns ordered. Mr. Snider was well fit for the task; I did whatever I could to assist him. “Place his head to the side, raise his arms. Rest his face on the palms of his hands, come on quickly!”

  Not interfering, Granny and Zaira observed the distressing scene from the far wall of the room.

  Dr. Ferns applied upward pressure to Alex’s elbows, slightly raising his upper body off the bed. He then pressed firmly with both hands on Alex’s shoulder blades.

  The constant motion went on, accelerating my heartbeat instead of Alex’s. Dr. Ferns’s hands worked hard and sturdy, but it wasn’t enough. It was taking too long; it wasn’t working. I held my breath for a moment to contain a sob when my eyes found Granny’s. She remained composed, giving me hope.

  “Allow me,” said Mr. Snider. The doctor nodded. Mr. Snider had much larger hands than Dr. Ferns and much more power behind them. After three tries, Alex let out a sigh, followed by choking.

  “Turn him around, bring him to a sitting position,” Dr. Ferns urged.

  I arranged a stack of pillows against the headboard of the bed. Mr. Snider sat Alex against the pillows.

  Zaira and Granny held hands in reassurance. Mr. Snider ran the back of his hand across his forehead, relief spread across his countenance.

  “Would you mind?” Dr. Ferns signaled to Alex’s shirt, and I unbuttoned it. The doctor pressed the earpieces of his stethoscope to his ears. He listened attentively as he moved the chestpiece around Alex’s chest. “Very well, very well. He has a stable heartbeat.”

  “Thank goodness,” Granny softly said.

  “That was too close, too close indeed,” Zaira affirmed.

  “Is he going to be all right then?” I asked, in desperate need for an affirmative answer.

&
nbsp; “Miss Contini, I think this was a natural reaction to the conflict between the poison and the antidote in his body. I’m happy to say that the antidote won.” Dr. Ferns smiled.

  Granny gave me a brief hug. I collapsed on a chair, relieved that my worst nightmare hadn’t come true. I then noticed that the rain was gone; I heard the excitement of birds cheering over the new day. The light started to grow through the east window. Dawn broke over Geneva.

  Alex’s heartbeat had stabilized. His skin was slowly regaining a healthy color.

  “Good morning, general,” I softly said, and I thought I saw a small movement in his eyelashes.

  The doctor walked in. “I spoke with the hospital. We won’t have the results back until tomorrow. But I think, Miss Contini, that Mr. Sterling is reacting well to the medicine I’ve given him. I’ll proceed with a second dose if you agree.” His fingers adjusted his spectacles; his small eyes looked at me intensely.

  “Yes, of course, thank you. Thank you for all you did last night. You’ve saved his life.”

  “My pleasure, Miss Contini. But now there is a more pressing matter. The police have arrived. They’d like to speak to you.” I shot a glance at Alex, hesitant to leave his side. “I need to check on Mr. Sterling anyway. No worries, I’ll watch over him until you return,” assured the doctor.

  I kissed Alex’s forehead. “Stay put, I’ll be right back, general.”

  Two officials from the local police along with a detective were conversing with Zaira and Granny in the kitchen.

  “This is Inspector Stanley,” Zaira introduced. “We have told them everything we know about Mrs. White and Mr. Vines.”

  The inspector was a handsome middle-aged man with an olive complexion. After a brief set of questions, he said, “There is only one thing that doesn’t fit—there is no apparent motive for the lady in question to want to dispatch Mr. Sterling. We have to have a motive, otherwise, anyone could’ve done it. All of you are guilty until proven otherwise.” His suspicious eyes wandered from face to face. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Actually, I was pretty sure it was the other way around—we were all innocent until proven otherwise, but I was smart enough not to cross him. Besides, I had no proof against Mrs. White. The fact that she might be in love with Alex was in her favor, and any comments on her mental health would also play against me, after all, it was just my own assumption.