Slowly he lifted his head to meet Penelope’s oddly flat gaze with his anguished one. “Our son is dead.”
Chapter 26
Seth watched with helpless anguish as Penelope retucked the shawl around the baby and resumed rocking. In a harsh monotone so different from her usual melodious vocal flow, she started to sing, “‘Hush-a-bye, my precious babe; let lovely dreams—’”
“Sweetheart—” Seth choked out.
“‘—In showers fall. Lullaby, sleep through the night and—’”
“Please, love. Listen to me,” he begged, standing up and grasping her shoulders to stop her frenzied rocking.
Her voice rose a decibel, drowning him out. “‘Be my cheerful morning light. Close your eyes, my bonny one. And—’”
Brittle with grief and guilt, Seth snapped. “He’s dead!” he shouted, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him in a desperate attempt to be heard. Her eyes were completely blank. “Our son is dead,” he repeated more gently this time.
“‘—Listen to my song of dreams.” She almost shrieked the words. “I wish you everlasting joy. And—’” Her voice broke then.
Slowly Seth sank to his knees in front of her, his hands sliding from her shoulders, down until he grasped her upper arms. “I’m sorry, sweetheart … so sorry,” he whispered, searching her eyes for a dawning of comprehension. There was none. She stared straight through him, unblinking and unseeing. “Just look at me, love. Please,” he implored. “You—”
“It’s my fault,” she interrupted with unnatural calm.
“No! You’re not to blame. You did everything—”
She cut him off as if he hadn’t spoken. “God’s punishing me for not wanting my baby.”
“Of course you wanted him! You loved him! Anyone could see that,” Seth denied vehemently.
She looked at him then, not in acknowledgment of who he was, but curiously, rather like the way one views an intriguing stranger. “I didn’t want him at first. I resented him terribly while I carried him. I blamed him for ruining my life.” She tipped her head to one side, peering at him in a way that reminded him of a sparrow begging for a crumb. “Sometimes when I read of the success of another singer performing a role that should have been mine, I actually hated him.”
“Don’t … please …” Seth entreated, her every word ripping at his heart.
But she continued anyway. “I’d think of all I was missing … the applause, my fawning admirers, the parties held in my honor, and I’d beg God to take him from me, to make me miscarry so I could reclaim my life.” A tear rolled down her cheek then. “I never knew how much I would adore him … what my darling Tommy would mean to me. Making me love him was God’s punishment.”
“No.” Seth shook his head, dying a little inside. “Love is a gift, not a punishment.”
She nodded, her expressionless face incongruently streaked with tears. “Love … yes … that is a gift. But to inspire and deepen that love, only to snatch it away … ah, now, that is punishment of the cruelest sort. Punishment that I deserve.” She shifted her gaze abruptly to the baby’s lifeless form. “My poor darling. There, there, now,” she crooned, patting his back and making soft, motherly little coos as if he were alive and crying.
It was all too terrible to watch, to hear. Too tragic to bear. Feeling as if he’d go as mad with grief as Penelope if it continued, Seth gently tried to pry the baby from her embrace. She clutched the tiny body tighter, glaring at him as fiercely as a mother wolf protecting her pup from a hunter. “Please, love,” he coaxed softly. “Let me hold my son.”
She shook her head. “No. I just got him to sleep.”
A sob tore at Seth’s chest, but he managed to reassure her. “I won’t wake him, I promise. I just want to wrap him in something warm so we can take him into town to see the doctor.”
She crushed the baby tighter against her breast as she glanced out the window, her face contorted with such intense sorrow that Seth wondered how someone could be so badly hurt inside and still live. “Snow,” she whispered, hopelessness woven throughout her voice. “I promised I’d have Tommy home before the first snowflake fell.”
She looked back at the motionless bundle in her arms. “I’m sorry, darling,” she murmured. “So sorry for failing you. I—” She crumpled forward then, Tommy clutched protectively to her breast. Seth caught her and swept her into his embrace.
For a long while he sat holding her, their dead son cradled between them, rocking them all back and forth, weeping soundlessly. When his tears at last ran dry, he pressed a kiss to Penelope’s head and murmured, “Sweetheart?”
She didn’t move a muscle. He drew back a fraction to peer at her face. Her eyes were fixed and staring, as if in a trance. “Penelope?” He shook her slightly. Not so much of a flicker. Over and over again he called her, alternately coaxing and demanding, then tearfully begging for a response. There was none.
Falling silent himself, Seth stared down at Penelope’s pale, vacant face, panic bubbling up inside him. Though she still breathed, she was as dead to him as his son.
No! he protested fiercely, his every fiber rebelling against the loss of the woman he loved. His son was beyond helping, but she wasn’t … she couldn’t be! He wouldn’t let her be! He had to do something to help her.
His mind worked furiously, searching for an answer. Perhaps a doctor? As he stared at her blank face, considering, a single tear escaped the corner of her eye. It was as if she were trapped inside by her grief, her tear a mute plea for release.
How? he wanted to scream. How can I help you? But, of course, he knew it would do him no good, just as he knew that hiring a million doctors would be futile. No medicine in the world could cure what ailed her. What he needed was to find someone who’d loved a child against all odds and lost it. Who had suffered what Penelope was now suffering and could tell him how to help her. He needed—
His mother? If she’d indeed loved and lost him as she claimed, wouldn’t she understand Penelope’s paralyzing sorrow? Wasn’t it possible that she might hold the key to release her from her inner prison of pain? Would she help him?
He had to ask her … he would ask her … for Penelope’s sake. He’d crawl to her on his hands and knees, and kiss her feet if necessary. Anything to regain the woman he loved.
As he rose and carefully set Penelope back in the rocker, his reeling head reminded him, as it had earlier, that he was in no condition to prostrate himself at anyone’s feet.
Impossibly dizzy, his head aching almost beyond bearing, Seth pulled on his clothes, then bundled Penelope up in several quilts for the ride into town. She was strangely biddable to his commands, responding automatically like the subject of a hypnotism experiment. Not once, not even when he took the baby from her arms, did she display so much as a hint of awareness.
A half hour later they headed for town. Penelope, as limp as a rag doll, rode braced against his chest, while her hired horse bearing the baby trotted placidly behind on a lead rope.
For Seth, the long, cold trip seemed interminable. Never had he felt so wretched, never had he exerted more willpower than during those hours as he struggled to stay in the saddle. Several times as they slowly wound their way down the snowy foothills, his vision grew so fuzzy, his dizziness so intense that he came dangerously close to fainting. Twice his nausea forced him from his horse to the ground, where he lay retching dryly, excruciating pain radiating from his broken rib with every heave. Just when he was certain he could go no farther, they came to the Platte River bridge. Mercifully the Vanderlyn house was only a mile away.
It was just past noon when they reached their destination. The place looked deserted. Not a thread of lamplight spilled through the drawn curtains; not a wisp of smoke curled from the chimneys. The doors of the carriage house, just visible through the scraggly trees, were thrown open, revealing the emptiness inside. Panic slugged at Seth’s gut. Where could Louisa have gone in this weather? The answer that sprang to his overwrought mind mer
ely heightened his anxiety.
Could it be that she was indeed guilty of her crimes against him and had fled from his retribution? That possibility made him long to weep. Yet what other explanation could there be? It was Sunday, so she wasn’t likely to be at the brewery, or—
Sunday! If Seth hadn’t been so weak with his sudden rush of relief, he’d have probably slapped himself. Of course! How stupid of him! From the Pinkerton reports he knew that Louisa faithfully attended church—one of the Lutheran ones, if he remembered correctly. He pulled out his watch and checked the time. Twelve forty-eight. She could be back anytime now.
As he shoved his watch back into his pocket, a freezing wind blasted from the west. Instinctively he drew Penelope’s shivering form against his chest, shielding her from the cold. He had to get her to shelter before she took a chill.
He glanced back at the house speculatively. Perhaps there was a servant inside who would let them wait in the foyer. If not, they would sit on the veranda. At least the building would break the wind and offer a small measure of protection.
With that mission in mind, he dismounted. After waiting a moment for his dizziness to pass, he lifted Penelope from the saddle. He was so weak and shaky that it was only through a sheer force of will that he managed to maneuver her safely to the ground. He was tying the horses to the hitching post when a vehicle came clipping down the street.
It slowed as it approached, and when it pulled to a stop next to him, he recognized it as Lousia’s buggy. Squinting painfully against the glare from the falling snow, he looked up from the black and red wheel to the woman within. She looked back; her face was as white as the fur trimming her black paletot-mantle.
For a heartbeat in time, mother and son stared at each other; her gaze uncertain yet yearning; his mutely appealing. Lisbet, who sat beside Lousia clutching a beaver muff, looked back and forth between the parties, visibly baffled.
It was Seth who finally broke the silence. “I need to talk to you. Please …” he begged, his voice hoarse with emotion.
She bit her lip and looked away.
Frantic, he hurled into her line of vision. The violent motion set his head spinning with a savagery that brought him to his knees. As he fell, he lifted his trembling hand to her in desperate entreat. “Please …” he whispered. Then everything went black. For the second time in as many meetings, Seth fainted at his mother’s feet.
“‘Slaap, kindje, slaap,’” sang a low voice.
Penelope, Seth thought hazily, struggling to open his eyes. But his heavy lids refused to budge.
“‘Daar buiten loopt een schaap,’” the singing continued, this time accompanied by a faint splash of water.
No, not Penelope. Her voice was higher … clearer … sweeter. Then who? With concentrated effort, he managed to slit open one lid. Light, brutal and glaring, pierced right through his eye into his throbbing brain. Mouthing a soundless groan, he clamped it shut again.
“‘Eeen schaap met witte voetjes.’” A wet cloth moved over his chest in spiraling motions. It felt cool … wonderful. He opened his mouth to say so, but no words issued from his dry throat.
“‘Drinkt er de melk zo zoetjes.’” The cloth was drawn away. There was a splash; then it returned, this time gliding down his midsection and over his belly.
Again he tried to speak. This time he succeeded. “Feels good,” he muttered, his voice cracking and breaking like that of a youth making the transition into manhood.
The cloth paused on his belly, then was pulled away. After a beat, he felt a work-roughened hand cup his cheek, just as Penelope always did. No. Not Penelope, he reminded himself. Her hands were soft … silky, like the skin of a newborn lamb. His brow furrowed. Where was Penelope, anyway? It seemed as if there was something he ought to be remembering about her.
“Can you hear me?” a vaguely familiar voice inquired.
Curious to match the face to the voice, Seth slitted open his eye again. Again he clamped it shut, this time moaning, “Light … hurts.”
She made a soothing little clucking noise and patted his cheek. Something about that noise tugged at his memory. “The doctor warned me that your eyes might be sensitive to the light at first. He said it’s normal after what you’ve been through.”
After what he’d been through … doctor? None of it made the slightest bit of sense. The hand left his cheek, and he felt the bed move as the owner of the voice stood up. He heard her move away, then a-swish! and a-clink! followed by the sound of muffled footsteps approaching the bed again.
“There. I’ve drawn the drapes and dimmed the lamp a bit,” she said. “Why don’t you try to open your eyes again?”
He did, experimentally peeping out of one eye. No pain, just an infusion of soft lamplight. Sighing, he opened the other one. Everything was a blur. He blinked several times in rapid succession trying to clear his vision. Gradually the colors and shadows merged into the shape of a tall, willowy woman; a woman who was older, yet beautiful; one who looked distinctly worried.
Recognition niggled at Seth’s brain as he stared up at her face. Though shadows obscured the color of her eyes, there was something familiar about the variegated shadings of her wheat-shot honey hair. And her jaw … it was unusually strong for a female, square and stubborn, like—
Then memory assailed him. Louisa … Tommy … death …
“Penelope!” he screamed, bolting up. Instantly he crumpled back down again, crippling pain lancing through the side of his skull. “Jesus,” he muttered, reaching up to press his hand to the throbbing area. His fingers met with what felt like a thick swathe of gauze.
Louisa made a soothing sound and patted his shoulder. “She’s fine,” she crooned. “She’s sleeping right now.”
“The … baby?”
“At the undertakers, poor little dear,” she informed him, raising his head a bit to hold a glass of water to his lips. “For a while there we were afraid you might join him.”
Seth obediently took a sip. It tasted good. Suddenly thirstier than he’d ever been in his life, he tried to take a bigger gulp, but she pulled the glass away. “Slowly,” she instructed, returning it to his lips. “We don’t want it coming right back up again.”
When Seth had drunk as much as Louisa would allow and was once again lying down, he asked, “What happened?”
“Do you remember fainting?”
He started to nod, but then thought better of it. “Yes.”
“Doc Larson said it was due to the swelling of your brain; the result, he believes, of some blows you took to your head a day or so earlier.” She gently touched the bandage. “When you didn’t regain consciousness after eight hours, he told me quite frankly that there would be little or no chance for your recovery unless he opened your skull and released the pressure.”
Her fingers glided downward to cup his cheek again. “As terrifying as I found the operation, I saw no choice but to let him do it. I wanted you to have every possible chance.” She bent nearer, and he could see tears shimmering in her eyes. “I simply couldn’t bear to lose you again.”
Seth laid his hand over hers on his cheek, the genuine tenderness in her expression and voice erasing the last of his doubts. “You’re never going to lose me again,” he promised. “I intend to be your son whether you want me or not.”
The joy on her face was so radiant, it was like watching the sun rise in her eyes. “Of course I want you. I wanted and loved you from the first second I looked at your wrinkly little face,” she declared fiercely.
Seth chuckled. “Wrinkled was I?”
“And red and skinny with the baldest head I’d ever seen.” She reached down and lifted his right arm to reveal the scar on the underside. “You also had a nasty cut on your arm.” She gently caressed the mark. “The midwife mistakenly grasped your arm with her forceps during your delivery and tore your flesh. As tired as I was from giving birth, I insisted on tending the wound myself.”
She smiled suddenly, her eyes misting over. “I’
ll never forget how you looked lying naked and squalling on my lap. You were so beautiful. I’d never seen a newborn before, and I found every finger, toe, even your tiny sex, fascinating. I bandaged your arm with my finest cambric handkerchief.” A sob caught her voice. “It was the first and last thing I ever did for you.”
“No, not the last,” Seth said in a hushed voice. “How can you say such a thing after all you’ve done for me these past few days? Without your care, I’d probably be dead now.” He shook his head gingerly and took her hand in his. “No … Mother. With God’s grace the last will come many years from now.”
“Mother. How I’ve longed to hear you call me that.” The look she gave him was almost shy. “Do you know what else I’ve wished?” At his encouraging smile, she replied, “To hold you again as I did the day you were born. Though you’ve grown to remarkable”—she eyed his long form—“and splendid proportions since that day, I’d like to hold you again if you’ll let me.”
Seth held out his arms, too choked with raw emotion to tell her that being held was exactly what he wanted at that moment. With a strength he found surprising, she swept him into her embrace, hugging him fiercely while alternately crooning loving nonsense and covering his face with kisses.
Peace such as he’d never known before engulfed Seth as he laid his head on her shoulder. Sighing his contentment, he closed his eyes, cozy and safe in the shelter of his mother’s arms.
It was a long while later when Louisa eased him back down to his pillows. Then she sat by his side practically devouring him with her gaze. It was as if she was trying to memorize every detail. “Your beautiful hair … I’m sorry,” she murmured, touching the bandage. “What the doctor didn’t shave, he cropped.”
For some odd reason, Seth didn’t feel more than a passing twinge at the loss. What was the sacrifice of a little hair when compared to the gains of a family and his life? He said as much.
She chuckled at his philosophical reply. “You sound just like your father when you talk like that. He was the most levelheaded man I ever met. That’s part of why I loved him so.”
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