Forever, For Love

by Becky Lee Weyrich

  Pandora looked up, amazed to hear such an apology coming from Angelica. The minute she stared into her cousin’s ice-blue eyes, she realized that this was no apology at all. Angelica wasn’t sorry for Pandora’s or Jacob’s sake that she had come between them. She was simply sorry that she had married Jacob Saenger.

  “Let’s not talk abut the past, Angelica. What’s done is done. Besides, the future is much more exciting.” She set her cup down and leaned close. “I have a secret to tell you. After Ward, you are the very first to know.”

  Angelica, always anxious for a juicy bit of gossip to spread, stared at Pandora, her face alive. “Then don’t keep me waiting. Do tell!”

  “I’m pregnant! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Angelica’s bright expression faded. “You’re sure?”

  “Positive!” Pandora nodded. “I saw Dr. Saenger just last week.”

  To Pandora’s utter amazement, Angelica laughed. “Well, isn’t this a coincidence! I’ve just seen him myself, this very morning. It seems we’ll both be mothers soon.”

  Pandora stared at her cousin, stunned by the news. Only last week, Jacob had stopped by. He often came to see her when life began to wear him down. They would sit on the veranda—sometimes with Ward, sometimes without him—and simply talk. Usually, Jacob did most of the talking and most of it had to do with Angelica. On his last visit, he had been in a particularly somber mood. He had poured out his heart to her that day and told her that Angelica was no longer a wife to him.

  “Jacob doesn’t even know yet,” Angelica continued. “I’m sure he’ll be delirious with excitement. You know how he’s always wanted a big family.”

  Pandora nodded, frowning. “Yes, I remember. He’ll be a fine father, I’m sure.”

  Angelica’s laugh tinkled in the sunny parlor. “Much better at it than Ward, I imagine. Somehow I can’t picture your big, strapping husband burping and diapering babies.”

  Pandora’s head jerked up. “Babies?” How could Angelica know? Had Dr. Saenger said something to her? She hadn’t even told Ward that they might be having twins. The doctor had said he couldn’t be sure yet. Then she realized she was only imagining things. Still, she didn’t want anyone else to know before she’d told her husband.

  “Let’s take this one baby at a time, shall we, Angelica?” Pandora laughed to cover her own tension. “Motherhood has me a bit nervous as it is. I don’t want to think beyond the first one.”

  “When’s your baby due, Pandora?” Angelica asked innocently, her mind working in crazy, frantic patterns.

  “In the spring—April, Dr. Saenger said.”

  Angelica widened her eyes in feigned surprise. “Well, my, my! Isn’t that a coincidence? Mine too!”

  Pandora didn’t know why, but she suddenly had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had something to do with Angelica’s announcement that she was also pregnant and the fact that she knew Jacob could not possibly be the father. Something about the situation seemed to threaten her and her family and their well-being.

  Pandora managed to mask her uneasiness as she said, “We’ll all have to celebrate tonight. I know Jacob will be as surprised and excited as Ward was when I told him my news.”

  Angelica only nodded and smiled. There was something in those cold, blue eyes that sent a shiver down Pandora’s spine.

  Chapter Eighteen

  By early 1898, the news was out. All of Galveston twittered about the fact that both Pandora Gabriel and Angelica Saenger were expecting babies in the spring. It seemed a miracle that the Saengers were finally to be blessed after all this time. Of course, the Gabriel infant was the more important of the two as far as the island’s citizens were concerned.

  “That child will surely be born with a sterling silver spoon in its tiny mouth,” Mrs. Rosenberg informed the ladies of the Thursday Evening Literary Guild at their March meeting.

  They all nodded their agreement, glad to have the opportunity to discuss the matter openly since both women in question were absent from the spring meeting—Pandora being too great with child to attend and Angelica being out of town, visiting her mother’s cousin in Mobile.

  “The Saenger child won’t fare too poorly either,” Mrs. Landes pointed out. “After all, Angelica will inherit the mansion on Broadway and the Emporium and her father’s other stores some day. Why, even if her husband is only a poor struggling doctor, she’ll be rich in her own right in time.”

  The others murmured thoughtfully over this, then Mrs. Rosenberg said, “Those Sherwood girls could own the whole island before it’s done. Suppose Pandora has a son and Angelica a daughter or vice versa. If those children married, they’d bring enough wealth together to buy and sell every last one of us.”

  “No,” Mrs. Landes gasped. “Never! There’s too much queerness in that family already what with Pandora’s visions and Angelica’s emotional instability. If those two little cousins grew up to marry, it would be madness for their offspring for sure.”

  The ladies left off their gossip then to return to their discussion of one of Lord Byron’s oriental tales, “The Corsair.”

  “‘He left a Corsair’s name to other times, Link’d with one virtue, and a thousand crimes,’” Mrs. Rosenberg read aloud in her stentorian voice.

  “You know,” interjected Mrs. Landes, “they say that Lord Byron was inspired to write this piece after reading in the newspapers of Jean Laffite’s bravery at the Battle of New Orleans.”

  Mrs. Rosenberg sniffed indignantly at the interruption. “I don’t believe that for a moment. Laffite was a scoundrel and a pirate, unworthy of such a lofty poet’s notice. Byron obviously wrote this about himself.”

  One of the younger members of the group spoke up for the first time, timid, but determined to be heard. “I think Jean Laffite was a terribly romantic figure, Mrs. Rosenberg. Did you know that after his wife died in his arms right here on Galveston Beach, he swore, as he buried her in the grove, that he would find her again in another life?”

  “Poppycock!” Mrs. Rosenberg huffed. “That’s a tale made up for the sake of tourists and feather-headed young women. Where did you ever hear such nonsense?”

  The young woman blushed as everyone stared at her. “Old Nettie told me.”

  Mrs. Rosenberg’s brows rose officiously. “There, you have just proven my point.” Then she went back to her reading.

  Pandora’s one problem during her pregnancy was that everyone was trying to pamper her to death. Ward cancelled several business trips, unwilling to leave her side. Cassie hovered like a mother hen, refusing to allow her mistress to lift a finger. The other servants were no better.

  Finally, one fine morning in mid-March, Pandora declared her independence. “Ward,” she commanded, “you are going to your office this morning!”

  They were at the breakfast table, Pandora refusing to be served in bed as she had been, at Cassie’s insistence, for the past four months.

  Ward looked up at his wife as if she had suddenly gone soft in the brain. “I wouldn’t think of it, darling. Any work I have to do today, I can do right here in my study.”

  “No!” she said flatly. “I honestly believe that you intend to smother me before these babies arrive. I want you out of here today. I have things to do and I can’t do them with you underfoot.”

  A short time later, Ward Gabriel, looking bewildered and rejected, put on his coat and left for his office on the Strand. As he walked out the door he was still protesting.

  Before he left, Pandora kissed him gently, trying to soothe his injured feelings. “I ask only an hour or two alone, darling. I promise you, I’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “She will be that, Mr. Ward!” Cassie assured him, standing nearby with her arms crossed imperiously over her bosom. “I’m not letting her do a thing you wouldn’t allow. No, sir!”

  The moment Ward was gone, Pandora turned on her overbearing servant. “I will do what I please this morning. Is that understoo
d, Cass?”

  “Not nothing that will hurt them babies.”

  “Certainly not. Now, I’m going to my studio and I don’t want to be disturbed.”

  Cassie looked horrified. “You ain’t planning to paint? No, ma’am! You can’t do that.”

  Pandora, already headed up the stairs, turned on the woman. “And why not?”

  “Them paints, they smell something awful, Miss Pan. Might harm the babies, all them noxious fumes.”

  “That’s ridiculous. As I said, I’ll be upstairs.”

  “What about your morning nap, Miss Pan?” Cassie’s question received no reply.

  Pandora entered her studio with the feeling of returning, after a long absence, to an old friend. There, just as she had left them months before, were her easel, her palette and her boxes of paints. Warm yellow sunshine flooded the room, pouring down through the skylight. She closed her eyes for a moment and breathed in the wonderful, familiar smells of turpentine, linseed oil, and paints that Cassie had branded “noxious.”

  Slipping into a long smock, Pandora set to work. She had two projects in mind. First, she would paint a chubby, pink-cheeked cherub on the headboard of the white double cradle. She also wanted to decorate the lovely, antique box Ward had given her for her eighteenth birthday. Someday, the box would belong to her children. She wanted to add something of herself to it that would last for many years.

  She set right to work and two hours later, she was still at it. She had to admit that she was tired—that she could not possibly finish both projects in one morning. The cherub even now was smiling at her from its ground of blue sky and white clouds. The antique box still sat on the table, untouched by her brush.

  She picked it up and smoothed her hands over the dark wood. What scene would be appropriate for its lid? She couldn’t decide. She opened the box and browsed through the contents. Over the past years, she had made a habit of hiding away all her treasures inside the tiny chest. She hadn’t looked through these things in a very long time.

  Going to the sofa, she eased herself down and carefully perused the contents—pressed flowers from Ward, their marriage certificate, special invitations, bows from gifts Ward had given her. The shell with the painted rosebud from Nettie. Finally, in the very bottom, she found the single gold and opal earring and the antique coins. Then her heart gave a sudden lurch. Something was missing—the dark curl tied with scarlet ribbon. Frantic, she shuffled back through everything in the box. She thought maybe it had slipped inside one of the envelopes but it was gone, nowhere to be found.

  Fighting tears, Pandora replaced the contents, feeling an odd emptiness deep down inside. She chided herself for being such a silly, sentimental woman. It wasn’t as if the lock of hair had belonged to some long-lost lover. Still, it had been a part of Ward’s gift. Losing it distressed her deeply.

  Rising slowly and with some effort, she roamed about the studio, unconscious of the fact that she was still searching. In one corner of the room, she came upon a covered canvas. She lifted the linen cloth covering the picture. She gasped and her heart all but stopped; it was the painting she had done in Paris of the man and woman in the grove. Now, three figures stood among the trees. A second woman with long dark hair had intruded—a woman she had not painted herself and never would have. The scene looked out of balance and the lone man seemed torn between the two of women.

  With a soft cry, Pandora let her hand drop from the canvas and clutched her belly. Silver dots swam before her eyes. Bells rang inside her head. The whole room seemed to be turning upside down.

  Cassie found Pandora a short time later. Anxious that her mistress had been alone so long, she entered the studio and almost fainted herself.

  “I found her just lying right there in the middle of the floor,” the still-trembling Cassie told Ward when he arrived home a short time later. “I told her them fumes would be bad. Mr. Ward, she wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “Take it easy, Cass,” Ward soothed. “Dr. Saenger says she’s going to be fine. He thinks she should stay in bed until her time comes. We aren’t going to argue with her anymore, we’re simply going to tell her.”

  “That’s fine by me,” the weeping woman sniffed. “Belonged there all the while is what I say.”

  Ward returned to the bedroom to find his wife looking pale and shaken. “Darling, how are you feeling?”

  “Strange,” she answered, not looking at Ward, but staring vacantly out the window.

  He sat down beside her on the bed and took her hand. “You should have listened to Cassie, darling. Those paint fumes…”

  She whipped around to face him, a fierce light in her eyes. “It wasn’t the fumes, Ward, it was the painting.”

  “What painting?” he asked gently. “I don’t understand.”

  Pandora, between sobs, spilled out the tale of the picture she’d done that long ago rainy afternoon in Paris, of how she’d meant to paint the Champs-Elysees, but instead Laffite’s Grove had flowed from her brush. “Ward,” she stammered at length, “now it’s changed! There’s someone else in the picture—Isabel!”

  Ward held her and tried to soothe her with soft words, assuring her that it had been only another of her visions. Pandora refused to be convinced. Finally, he said, “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll bring the painting in here.”

  “No!” she gasped. “I can’t bear to look at it, Ward.”

  “Then I’ll go look at it myself.” He left her then, a worried scowl on his face. What was happening to her? Her imagination was getting out of hand.

  Pandora lay trembling in the bed, dreading Ward’s return. The change in the painting frightened her more than any other vision she had seen.

  A moment later, Ward returned, carrying the canvas. “It’s lovely, darling. One of your best, I’d say.” He laughed heartily. “Why, the man even has all his clothes on!”

  When Ward started to turn the picture toward Pandora, she cried, “No! I don’t want to see it!”

  “It’s all right, darling,” he said gently. “See? It’s just as you described it to me—a man and a woman embracing in the grove. There’s no other figure in the picture. You must have had one of your visions just before you blacked out.”

  Pandora stared at the canvas, unable to believe her eyes. She had seen the other woman! She didn’t care what Ward said. Yes, it had been a vision and it had also been a warning. But a warning against what? She still equated Isabel with Angelica. However, Angelica posed no problem that Pandora could see. She was not even on the island. What could the vision mean?

  “Why don’t you try to rest now, darling?” Ward suggested. “You look done in.”

  She reached out for his hand. “Will you stay here with me?”

  Leaning down to kiss her forehead, Ward whispered,”Of course I will, as long as you like. Dr. Saenger says you’re to remain in bed from now until your time comes. Understood?”

  She smiled and nodded, feeling far too weak and frightened to argue.

  So for the next weeks, Pandora became a prisoner of her bed, with Ward and Cassie as her loving keepers. She did convince them finally to let her have her paints and the antique box. She promised to work on it only for short stretches at a time. She had decided at last which scene she would paint—the grove, with only two figures there, herself and Ward, embracing and vowing their love for all time.

  While the rest of the island’s citizens anxiously awaited the two April births—some even laying bets on the sexes and arrival dates of the pair—two Galvestonians could not get caught up in the almost carnival atmosphere surrounding the coming blessed events.

  The Drs. Saenger—father and son—knew that Angelica was not now nor had she ever been carrying a child.

  “I don’t understand, Jacob.” The old doctor sat across his son’s desk, shaking his shaggy, gray head. “What can she be thinking?”

  Jacob sighed and clasped his hands together before him. “I haven’t wanted to say anything a
bout this to you before, Father. I was sure Angelica would give up her wild scheme. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, so I suppose you must know. After all, you’re Pandora’s doctor, too.”

  “You mean Angelica is only pretending to be pregnant because her cousin is?”

  Jacob shook his head. “If only it were that simple. Angelica demanded some time ago that I steal an infant for her. She announced to me that she was pregnant the very day that she found out Pandora was expecting. Then she dashed off to Mobile. I’ve just received a letter from her. She’s in Houston now, awaiting word from me that I have procured a baby for her. When all is ready here, she will slip back into Galveston under cover of darkness, claim the child, and explain to everyone that it was born before her return.”

  “Great God in heaven, your wife’s gone mad!”

  Jacob nodded, a pained expression on his face. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what’s happened, Father.”

  “Ah, Jacob my boy, how twisted life seems at times! Here is your wife, longing so to become a mother, yet seemingly unable to conceive, while her cousin carries twins.”

  Jacob looked up, all attention. “You’re sure now about the twins?”

  A twinkle glittered in the older man’s brown eyes and he nodded with some enthusiasm. “There is no doubt in my mind any longer. For some reason, Pandora wants to keep the news a secret. She is a dramatic woman. I suppose she thinks it will be even more exciting to surprise all of Galveston this way.” He laughed softly.

  Jacob shoved up from his chair and walked to the window, gazing out toward the Gulf. “Well, thank God Angelica doesn’t know! That could push her over the edge. Things are bad enough as they are.”

  Old Dr. Saenger muttered in German under his breath. He looked at his son with pity in his eyes. “Of course, you have no intentions of going along with this wicked plan.”