“You’ve done me a world of good, sugar,” he said with a peaceful grin. She began to tremble as the heartache in her heightened in agony. “I thank you for that. For bringing me here…for helping Laura.”
“So far, I’ve done nothin’ to help Laura,” Lauryn reminded him. “And we practically kidnapped you from the train, Nana and I. And I don’t possibly see what good I could’ve done your world when…”
Once more his hand covered her mouth silencing her. He chuckled. “You know…you do tend to ramble when you’re unsettled. Always apologizing.”
“I’m sorry,” Lauryn whispered, a lone tear escaping her eye and trickling down her face. He was so fabulous! “How can life ever be the same,” Lauryn wondered. She looked up into his face, wishing with all her heart that she could see his eyes, read in them exactly what he was feeling.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “I like that about you.” He smiled and reached out caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. He caressed the tearless cheek. Lauryn was thankful for that.
Her thanks was short-lived. He reached out taking her face between his powerful hands. She knew he must have felt the tear on her cheek, though he said nothing about it.
What he did say was, “You’ll find her for me, won’t you? Since I can’t anymore? You will find her. Won’t you?” Lauryn felt as if a yoke heavy laden with bricks had just been placed on her shoulders. She was again reminded that now, not only did she have her dear Captain dependent on her to save his eternal happiness, but Brant was, too.
“I’ll…I’ll try,” was all she could promise as more tears escaped her eyes.
“You’ll do it,” he whispered, as his thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks. Unexpectedly, he pulled her into his full embrace, hugging her tightly. For a moment, Lauryn thought a dream was about to come true; that he would hold her in his arms forever, never letting her go. When she felt him kiss the top of her head, she thought she might truly die of an odd blissful heartache.
“Don’t go,” she begged him in a whisper as her arms encircled his waist, embracing him tightly. “I…I can’t do this alone. I…I…”
“You’re not alone, Lauryn,” he mumbled. “You’ve got your Captain and your family and….” He stopped talking when she released her embrace and pulled away from him. “You’ll be fine.”
“You better get goin’,” she sniffled. “You’ll miss your train.” Turning from him she took his hand and placed it on her shoulder, wiping furiously at her tears. Sean would never let her hear the end of this. Crying like a sobbing widow.
“Wait.” Brant turned her to face him. Again he took her face in his hands. “Let’s end it like we began,” he said in a low beguiling tone. His thumb caressed her lips softly as his head bent toward hers.
Lauryn’s heartbeat was so thoroughgoing she feared she might faint in his grasp. As she shared his tender kiss, fabulous exhilaration replaced her dizziness, and she stood firm. His kiss was lingering, but sweet. Not at all the brutal, hard kiss he’d forced upon her in the train car. Somehow, in the back of her mind, Lauryn thought she favored their first kiss. This one, sweet and soft, exhilarating as it was, meant good-bye.
“Goodbye, sweet, beautiful Lauryn,” he mumbled.
“For Pete’s sake, Brant!” Patrick whined charging up the front porch stairs and into the entryway. Rushing forward, he took Brant’s hand and began tugging. “Quit slobberin’ all over Lauryn or y’all will miss your train!”
Brant chuckled, and released Lauryn. “All right, Patrick. All right.”
“You stay in here,” Patrick told his older sister. “You look as rotten as an ol’ cabbage!”
“Thank you, Patrick,” Lauryn grumbled.
“Remember, Lauryn,” Brant called over his shoulder as he left Connemara house. “Nothing too personal in those letters.”
“Goodbye,” Lauryn whispered, too quietly to be heard. She watched them all drive away in Sean’s auto before racing upstairs and throwing herself on her bed to release her heartache through sobbing.
The Captain appeared, as she knew he would for he would never abandon her. She snuggled into his loving embrace and cried. The ache in her heart, the loneliness in her bosom were unlike anything she had ever felt. She wondered if in helping the Captain, she would be forced to experience the kind of heartache he felt being separated from Lauralynn? Had Brant come into her life simply to give her soul an insight into the pain the Captain and Laura felt?
“Will you stay and talk to me awhile?” she asked.
“Of course, pumpkin,” he assured her. Even this assurance did not squelch the loss she felt at Brant’s leaving. It frightened her all the more to realize than, for the first time since she met the Captain and he became her greatest friend, he could not sooth her worries and sadness. Something was changing in her very soul and it frightened her.
“Well, brother,” Parker Masterson began, once he’d settled himself across from Brant. “I feel I’m doing you a disservice in taking you away from that house full of lovely women.” Brant smiled, halfheartedly. “I’m wondering if you’d have been better off there rather than at home with Dad and me.”
“Naw, too much pampering makes a man soft,” Brant said. “I need some toughening up.”
Parker smiled. “That little Lauryn was getting to you, huh?”
“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Brant chuckled.
“Hell, yes!” Parker exclaimed. “Like I said, I’m wondering if you would’ve been better off staying there with her.”
Brant shook his head. “Nope, time to get home.” But, Brant was wondering the same thing. Lauryn had helped him begin to come out of the darkness his soul had floundered in ever since he’d been wounded. Would he be able to stay in the light without her sweetness to hold him there?
Brant sat on the edge of his bed. It was good to be home in familiar surroundings. He’d been gone from it all for a very long time. And, he found it easier to find his way around the house he’d grown up in rather than the foreign twists and turns of Connemara. Yet, he was unsettled, dissatisfied. Was it still his blindness that made him anxious? Or, was it the absence of his sweet, understanding little southern belle back in Tennessee?
One thing he did know was Laura needed him. At any moment, he expected her to appear. At the same time, he felt his heart ache at the thought of her reaction when she saw he was sightless and unable to help her, or even comfort her. Then, as if initiated by his thoughts, he caught the first soft whiff of fragrance on the air.
The scent grew stronger and stronger until it nearly saturated the room urging Brant to speak, “Hello, Laura.” In an instant, he felt her tender touch on his knee and her soft hand clasped his. “I…I’m useless to you now, Laura. I was wounded in the war. I can’t see.” Immediately, he sensed her distress and began to try to give her hope. “But I’ve been to Connemara house! And, I’ve met the girl that sees your Brandon. I’ve told her everything I know and…” He stopped, thinking he’d heard a voice. Had someone entered the room? “Who’s there?” he asked.
Again he heard something, or thought he did. But had he? It sounded like someone, a woman, had spoken his name. It was so nearly inaudible that he was sure it was his imagination. Shaking his head, he dispelled the interruption and began again. “I’ve told this girl everything, Laura. She’s a witty little thing and I think…” Again he was interrupted by the tiniest of whispers. For a moment he fancied that perhaps his sanity was in question. Then he felt Laura caress his cheek affectionately and squeeze his hand. And, he listened—listened like he’d never listened to anything in his life. He knew that since losing his sight, his sense of hearing had heightened dramatically.
As he listened to the air. He felt goose pimples break over his body as he did, indeed, hear a young woman’s voice whisper, “Brant.”
“Laura?” he asked.
Then she placed her hand over his mouth to hush him. He felt tears welling
in his eyes as he again heard the softest of whispers. “Yes, Brant. Listen. Listen to me.” He wondered if he had truly heard her or if, rather, she had found a way to speak to his mind. That is what it sounded like; not so much like a voice coming from someone standing before him, but like a trick of imagination. He strained his ears again, strained his mind. He tried to filter out the sound of the breeze outside his window, the quiet crackle of the fire. Then he heard her. Like the softest, sweetest dream.
“Don’t despair,” Laura whispered. “Tell me.”
Brant felt Laura sit down on the bed next to him. “Tell you?” he asked, momentarily forgetting what he’d meant to say.
“Of Brand and the girl. Tell me,” came the quiet, dream-like voice of Lauralynn Masterson.
As the bandages on his eyes soaked up tears that escaped them, Brant told Laura of her beloved Captain, ever searching, ever faithful. He told her of Lauryn and her mother and of Laura’s own sister, Virginia. When he’d finished, he felt her sweet kiss on his cheek.
“There’s hope, Laura,” he told her. “This girl…she’s gives me hope.”
“Lauryn,” came the quietest of whispers. And with it, as was the case when Laura spoke her own name, the fragrance accompanying her, intensified ten-fold.
“Why can I hear you now, Laura? Never before?” Brant asked. “All these years…all this frustration of not being able to talk with you.”
“Your eyes,” came a soft, barely discernable answer. Brant was beginning to understand that, although he could hear her now, she was still bound by something. He could not hear all of what she spoke, just pieces.
“I’ve learned to listen better since being blinded,” he affirmed.
“Differently,” came another whisper. “Differently.”
“I’m sorry that I never listened before,” Brant apologized.
“You did,” Laura told him. “Differently.” Brant nodded.
“I told her everything I could think to tell her, Laura,” he stated. “I told her about your appearance, things you’ve helped me to understand. I even told her about the teacup you used to carry.”
“The blood…my dress?” came the whispering question.
“Yes, everything.” Then, he asked her something that had always bothered him. “Where is it, Laura? The teacup. Why don’t you carry it anymore?”
“Gone,” she answered.
Brant nodded and reaching out, embraced her tenderly. “She’ll find you, Laura. I know she will.” He felt her tiny hands stroke the back of his head lovingly.
“Help her,” she whispered. “…Needs you. I’m lost and I can’t.”
As he comforted his spiritual friend, Brant thought of how differently he would have left Lauryn had he been the powerful, confident, sighted man he’d once been. There would have been no sweet, tearful goodbye in the entryway of Connemara house—no innocent, childlike kiss. Had Brant Masterson been himself that day, Lauryn’s mother would’ve had him thrown out on his hind end for the way he would have kissed that tempting little daughter of hers.
Maybe, he thought, as he lay in bed long after Laura left him that night—maybe the doctors were right. Maybe there was hope in regaining his sight, but it was best to prepare for the worst. Then he turned on his side, his last thoughts being of the poor, sweet girl down in Franklin, Tennessee whom he had left with such a burden to bear alone.
Two weeks passed, two weeks that Lauryn spent searching every inch of Connemara for a clue to Laura’s whereabouts. Two frustrating weeks that yielded nothing! Nothing, that is, except for the horrifying experience of having a spider drop down her blouse when she was digging around under the gazebo. Two weeks of wondering, every moment, about Brant’s welfare. Wondering if he were happy. Wondering if he ever gave another thought to Connemara house and its current inhabitants.
Every day Lauryn talked to the Captain, trying to draw strength and comfort from him as she had in the past. But something was different. Something was changing in her. She felt more distant from her dear friend. More helpless and frustrated than ever.
Nearly every day she’d stroll along the streets of Franklin with Penny, reminiscing about their youth, sharing their adventures of the past year. But, always, she was just short of giving her friend her full attention. Every moment he was there—Brant, lurking about in her mind and heart, distracting her from life.
“You’re an ol’ grouch,” Patrick told Lauryn one afternoon as he came to sit at the kitchen table across from her.
“Now, Patrick,” Georgia scolded. “You be nice to your sister. She’s got a lot on her mind.”
“Well, she doesn’t have to be such an ol’ stick-in-the-mud all the time,” the boy grumbled.
Lauryn forced a smile. She had been quite neglectful of her little brother. And after the way he’d looked forward to her returning, too.
“I’m sorry, Patrick,” she told him. “I’m sorry. We’ll play soldiers later, okay?”
The boy brightened. “Promise?”
Lauryn nodded. “I’ve promised Penny that I’d go over to her house for games later…but before I go…you and I will have a fine battle.”
Patrick sighed contentedly. “In that case…I think I can cheer you up a bit, sissy.”
“Really?” Lauryn giggled. “How?”
Reaching down the front of his shirt, Patrick produced an envelope. Immediately Lauryn’s heart leaped. “It’s a letter—from Brant,” the boy explained. “The postman dropped it off just a few minutes ago.”
Lauryn snatched the letter from Patrick’s hand, not trusting him an inch. No doubt he would use the letter to taunt her mercilessly if she let him have a second’s thought.
“Hey! Be nice! It’s just a lousy ol’ letter,” Patrick grumbled. “And remember, Lauryn…you promised!”
“I know, angel,” Lauryn said.
“Mama,” Patrick whined. “Tell her not to call me, angel. It’s embarrassin’! What if the fellas heard her?”
Lauryn was oblivious to anything in the room, anything in the world save the letter in her hands. Her heart pounded madly as she opened it and read:
“Dear Lauryn,
I hope you can decipher this mess my father calls penmanship…”
A letter! Brant had actually sent her a letter! Lauryn pulled the paper to her lips and kissed the document in delight.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Mama,” Patrick whined. “She’s kissin’ a letter. It’s paper, Lauryn. That’s all.” Unable to tolerate another second of his sister’s feminine behavior, Patrick stood up and walked from the room calling, “Let me know when you’ve finished readin’ that silly thing, Lauryn. I’ll set up the men.”
Lauryn glanced at her mother to find her eyes sparkling with excitetment. “You’ll tell me what he says, won’t you, sweetheart? How he’s holdin’ up?”
Lauryn nodded and stood, intent on privacy. Her mother would understand. Once she had put on a sweater she hurried toward the cemetery to sit at Henry’s feet with the fresh breezes of late winter refreshing her senses and began to read the letter once more.
“Dear Lauryn,
I hope you can decipher this mess my father calls penmanship, though he assures me his is more legible than mine would be right now.
I hope that everything and everyone at Connemara is well. It’s still very cold up here. I had forgotten how much I missed it, though. Nothing like a warm fire on a cold night.”
Lauryn paused, trying to imagine Brant in Vermont; trying to picture his face, broad shoulders, handsome smile.
“Everything is fine with me. I’m hearing things I’ve never heard before. I hope you understand.”
What did he mean, Lauryn wondered. Surely he didn’t mean he’d found a way to hear Lauralynn! Lauryn’s curiosity was nearly intolerable and she read on.
“Nothing new to tell you, though. I hope this finds you with more new knowledge than I’ve got.”
Lauryn sighed, thinking how disappointed he would be in her w
hen she answered his letter and told him that she’d failed them all.
“Thank you again, Lauryn…and be sure and thank your family for me, as well…for all your help, compassion and care. A house full of angels…that’s what I’ve told my family about all of you. And it’s true.
Tell Patrick, “Hello,” for me. And everyone else. Let me know how your adventure is coming along…and I will notify you if anything important comes to me on my end.
Dad says I should close with some sort of mush...like ‘yours truly.’ But that doesn’t sound like me. So, I’ll say this…Thank you, Lauryn…for tasting so good!
Brant”
Lauryn relished the hot, tingling blush that engulfed her at his closing. Even though she knew his very forward ending remark had been for his father’s benefit, she relished it. That he would even think of it! That he had kissed her goodbye and that he would imply it to his father. But there was more to the letter.
“My dear Miss Kensington,” it began. “Being Brant’s father, as I am, I could not post this letter without adding my own thanks to you and yours for taking such good care of my son. I think it did him a world of good to spend a week with you all. His spirits are quite lifted, his attitude more positive than when we communicated with him last.
A grateful father thanks you. Sincerely, Darnell Masterson.”
It was a short letter, but Lauryn was delighted with it. Apparently, Brant was somewhat content. And, although it was inconceivable to even try to believe, the letter implied Brant could somehow communicate with Lauralynn. Perhaps even hear her.
But most importantly, Brant had exerted the effort to write to her. And even though she could not make him happy by writing back and telling him that she was closer to finding Laura, she could write back. After all, it just wasn’t proper not to answer a letter.
Tucking the letter safely in the pocket of her sweater, Lauryn returned to the house to fulfill her promise to Patrick. Her mood lightened, she was actually excited about playing soldiers with him! And then it would be off to Penny’s house. Penny would lighten her heart even further. After two long weeks, Lauryn was finally able to smile sincerely.
The Fragrance of Her Name Page 14