The Rose Legacy

by Kristen Heitzmann

  She shook her head. How could she make sense of his complexity? She bit her lip, trying hard not to feel betrayed. He had wounded her, yes, but why? If she could only understand. She came to the landing of the Rose Legacy, but she wasn’t alone. “Father?”

  The priest sat on the stone foundation overlooking the plunging slope. His hands hung empty from arms rested on his knees. He looked up, his face gray and rutted as though he had outlived the vigor he’d once possessed. He showed no surprise at her attire, no interest in her at all.

  Carina brought the mare to a halt. What was he doing there, so grim and bleak? She slid from the horse and crossed the distance between them. “What is it, Father? Are you hurt?”

  He let his head hang, too heavy for his neck. “Not in body.”

  “What’s happened? Did you find Henri?”

  He groaned, caught his head between his hands, and nodded.

  Carina spun and searched the woods about them. Was Henri Charboneau near? “Where is he?”

  “Dead. By his own hand.”

  Carina dropped down to the foundation beside the priest, understanding now his condition. “You were too late.”

  “To save his life.” He looked up now.

  She stared into Father Antoine’s face. “His soul?”

  “He made his confession. Threw himself on God’s mercy, God rest him.”

  Carina clasped her hands in her lap. Surely that was enough. God’s promise extended to the last breath. Yet the priest’s desolation was complete. Did he mourn him so deeply? Or had that confession, as Èmie feared, destroyed Father Antoine’s peace? Had Henri admitted killing William Evans?

  Father Antoine sighed. “I knew. I never had proof, but inside I knew. Yet I let Wolf take the blame, coward that I was. I couldn’t bear to have people know that my own brother …”

  Was he wandering? Why did he speak of Wolf?

  “And when all the town would have lynched Wolf, I spoke the voice of reason. There was no witness. He couldn’t be convicted. Leave the man in peace.”

  The priest dropped his face to his hands a long moment, then suddenly looked at her directly. “But what peace was there for him, doubted on all sides, suspected of butchery and worse, some violent insanity? Feared and hated. I did that to him.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. If I had acted on my suspicions, confronted Henri …”

  And now she guessed why he spoke so. Henri had killed the man Wolf was accused of killing, torn out the throat of a human being. Carina trembled. She looked at the square of burnt foundation. Is that why Wolf, like Rose, had burned? Was it too much to be hated and feared, despised and rejected? Had he not suffered that already at the hands of the Sioux who took him as a slave?

  She understood Father Antoine’s pain. Quillan’s papa. Even his own son had been taught to despise him. And Rose? Was she not caught in the terrible web? Carina sat in silence beside the priest as the sun apexed above the mountain. Her stomach was hollow, but she wanted no food.

  Forking his fingers into his hair, the priest groaned. “All these years.”

  Carina just listened.

  “Rose came to me with the baby. She wanted me to take him, to raise him as my own. But I was new into my calling. I burned to search out the lost souls and minister God’s mercy.”

  Tears caught in his throat. “What would I do with a baby? What would people think? How could I tramp the mountain with an infant, a child? God had big things for me. I couldn’t see that she’d brought me ‘one of the least of these.’ ”

  He dropped his face into his hands, held it there. “So I suggested my colleague, the Reverend Edward Shepard. He was a good man, a faithful man.” He shook his head. “But Mrs. Shepard … she pulled aside her skirts when Rose passed, told the children not to look. And here I suggested she give her precious son to the woman to raise?”

  The priest stood up and paced furiously. “What did I know? A man. A priest. How could I understand a woman’s mind? And one already fragile with tragedy …”

  He drew a long breath and spread his hands. “I was the death of both of them.”

  Tears stung Carina’s eyes. Her heart ached, for the priest, for Rose and Wolf … for Quillan. Oh, Signore …

  Father Antoine motioned to her. “Come with me.”

  Carina rose and followed him up the mountain. Some two hundred yards above the mine he stopped, and Carina saw there a single stone, crudely chiseled with two words, Wolf and Rose. They stood in silence before the stone, pale in the waning light.

  Then the priest walked to a mound of stones and pulled them apart. From their hollow he retrieved a metal box. Carina watched as he opened the box and took out a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. He unwrapped the cloth from a book. Bound in red leather, it had a clasp and lock and tiny key tied on with a silken ribbon. He held the book out to her, and gently Carina took it.

  “It belonged to Rose. She put it into my keeping should Quillan ever want to know his mother.” He stared out across the mountainside, his face a mask of pain. “This much I accepted.”

  Carina stared at the finely tooled cover with gold inlay, the name plaque in the center of the scrollwork. Rose Annelise DeMornay. She brought the book to her breast and cradled it there, her heart beating against it. Quillan’s mother. Rose Annelise DeMornay. Now she had a name.

  “You want me to give it to him?”

  He stayed silent. That was for her to decide. He was merely passing on the trust. And now she knew why she’d had to come up there. This little book was the key. By knowing Rose, she might somehow know Quillan.

  Her heart ached. How different Quillan’s life might have been. She knew so little, but she would never forget the bitterness with which he’d spoken of his foster mother. His pain was raw and haunting. Father Charboneau had reason to blame himself. But then, didn’t they all?

  She turned to him, touched his arm gently. “Go down to Èmie, Father.”

  He just stood, looking lost on the mountain.

  “You’ve done all you can here. You must forgive, even yourself.”

  His mouth softened, almost smiled. “Have you learned that, then?”

  She nodded.

  He kindled slowly, then he did smile. “Thank you for reminding me.”

  They walked together to the Rose Legacy, stopping a moment at the square foundation. Carina looked at the priest. “Will you tell them now? About Henri? Clear Quillan’s name of suspicion?”

  Father Antoine nodded. Then Carina watched him take the track down. The scent of pine was potent in the afternoon heat as Carina settled on the edge of the foundation. She looked down to where Placer used to be. She saw the gulch floor, Cooper Creek running through, new grass and wild flowers making a soft carpet where the flood had passed over.

  She caught her breath sharply. She was looking down, yet there was no dizziness. No sense of falling. No twisting in her stomach. Her breath came out in a slow sigh as she realized God had healed her. Grazie, Signore! She pressed the diary to her breast with an overwhelming sense of peace. God would make it right. Somehow God would make it right.

  With that hope, she unlocked the diary and opened to the first gilt-edged page. This is the journal of Rose Annelise DeMornay written by my own hand this year of 1851. The page was inscribed in a beautiful Spenserian hand. Rose had been well educated, probably gently reared, but her very next words shocked Carina.

  It is the way of dreams to become nightmares. What seems beautiful is seldom as it seems. Can any who have lived not believe in death? Can any who have loved not know what it is to hate?

  Carina looked up at the cloud-clotted sky. They could be her own words. Had she not come to Crystal with just such a thought, betrayed by Flavio and wanting to hurt back? Had not her dream become a nightmare? Even now her new faith struggled against the fresh hurt from Quillan. Could God bring good out of it? Gesù Cristo. She wanted to believe it, but could she?

  It is a fact that the human heart differs from all other s
pecies. While its function to the body is that same of all animals, its participation with the human soul is both rhapsodic and fatal. I find myself at odds with my own heart, longing and at the same time despising myself for that longing. For I know what sort of man I love, and if I once surrender to that love, will it not destroy me? Yet he pleads his case with such skill I fear I shall succumb with the same helpless devotion of so many others. For I love him and hate him at once. I love what I want him to be, and hate what he is.

  Carina pressed her hand to the page, surprised by the affinity. Could she not have written exactly that for Flavio? Wasn’t it so? She had loved the dream, the might-have-been. And blinded herself to the truth of him. At least Rose had seen her love for what he was.

  She turned the page.

  January 7, 1851 Is there any pain an enemy can inflict that compares to the damage done by a friend? Even more so, love’s injury? I am diseased in every part, no part free of the ailment. For it is as I feared. His love is a poison I cannot live without. If I surrender, will he become the man I dream of?

  January 9, 1851 What joy in the sunshine. What glory fills a bird’s throat that infects the air with song. I am awakened to the wonder, and I will open my ears and close my eyes, the better to listen and feel the sun’s glow. For my love sings my praises and on his lips are the words I long to hear. In me he learns faithfulness and eternal devotion.

  Carina closed her eyes. Was there even such a thing? Her faith in god was fledgling; her faith in men … shaking her head, she read on.

  To rise to higher joy is to risk a deeper sorrow. Do I dare reach for the sun? Or have I touched it already? I don’t know. My experience is too small. What I know is little to what I hope to know. What I feel is already too much. Yet how can I go back to thinking and reasoning when there is such bliss?

  Was love bliss? The feelings that swept in like the tide, then left the dry sand in its wake? How could feelings be trusted? Feelings had made her surrender more of herself to Quillan than she ever thought possible. Feelings had left her angry and wounded when he deserted her that morning.

  Feelings were not enough. There must be more. There must be trust, respect, honor. All that she longed to give Quillan. A warmth of appreciation filled her. She loved him with something that went beyond feelings.

  She wished she could warn the woman whose words filled the page before her. Don’t listen to his words. Don’t act on the flight they give your heart. Think of what you first said, of dreams becoming nightmares. But the ink was set, and with the next passage, Carina sagged.

  February 4, 1851 The thing is done; it can’t be undone. How can one go back and change a moment passed? Even a moment that should never have come. I fear with the deed I have lost not only my virtue but my life as well. For of all life’s betrayers, the heart is the worst. It flutters with joyful anticipation, leading down paths better untrod. Now that I know my heart, I must never follow it again.

  Carina held the book, trembling. She hadn’t expected a happy story, but neither had she anticipated such a connection to the woman whose most private thoughts she now read. It was as though Rose’s struggle became her own. She stared at the journal, its pages showing her a woman she never knew, but might have known if life had been kinder, a woman who would now be her mamma through marriage to Quillan.

  A large gray jay lighted on the corner of the wall and hopped toward her. Carina recalled Mae’s trick but had nothing for him. He cocked his head to look at her sideways, then flew.

  She dropped her gaze to the page.

  February 23, 1851 It has been weeks now since he’s come. I no longer fool myself. Eternity for my darling was very short indeed. But to me time is an undying enemy. No matter how much you put behind you, there is always more. I think eternity the cruelest joke of all.

  How will I hide my despair? If the eye is the window to the soul, and from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, why can’t we all be blind and dumb? Then all might stumble about speaking foolishness and no one be the wiser to my plight. As it is, all who see me must know, all who hear feel the pain entrapped within me. For the abundance of my heart is gall and my soul languishes.

  Carina rested her fingers on the page, aching for one who could express such despair so poignantly. Rose was herself a poet, not writing in rhyme and meter, but in beauty and sorrow so profound it found an echo in Carina’s breast. And suddenly Carina felt blessed that it was not she flavio had enticed! Could she have withstood him?

  I no longer know myself. Is it possible to live someone else’s life? If so, I have left mine and entered the mind and body of a stranger … whom I don’t much like and trust not at all. I weep incessantly, which is a great disgrace to me. Did I not know what I risked? Did I not choose it?

  Carina brushed a tiny gold-bodied fly from the page. Now that she saw herself with new eyes, with God’s eyes, she knew her own weakness. Even her marriage to Quillan left her vulnerable. The heart was indeed a false guide. She read on.

  February 24, 1851 To think is pain; to remember, torment; but to consider the future—more than I can bear. If my suspicions prove correct, then I am lost indeed. For what woman of fallen character has ever survived the blow?

  Carina’s breath caught. What did Rose surmise? She was with child? Quillan?

  And where is the one who led me there, who held the draught to my lips saying “drink, drink.” He has found another with whom to dally, and I would warn her but I am mute beside him. My words would fall on deaf ears.

  February 25, 1851 A single moment of joy can slake the throat of a dying spirit. An act of kindness, no matter how small, becomes a mercy drop from heaven. Where are these drops? Where is my joy? Each moment is consumed by fear and trembling. My angst weakens me, body and soul. Where will I turn for peace?

  February 26 Of all my sins, one stands out above the others. That I ever took my first breath. My foolishness will soon be seen. What is whispered in darkness will be shouted in the light. Cry shame! You are defiled. Away from me, daughter of sin. Their voices haunt my dreams. Soon they will fill my waking, as well.

  Carina read on, transfixed by Rose’s plight. Her lover had gone to prey on a new victim, and Rose … Rose was left to bear the shame. And the child.

  March 3, 1851 Is a violent deed more heinous than a violent thought? The thought and deed spring from the same spirit. What fear have I of death? What is fear but a longing to retain what I do not want? Since I have died inside, it cannot matter what becomes of my shell.

  I pray then for death to come upon me. I fill both waking and sleeping hours with that prayer. Yet I linger. A prayer in the darkness might go no farther than the pillow. But a prayer in the morning comes back to slap you. God has turned His face from me. He knows me no more. Daughter of shame. Daughter of sorrow.

  I am no longer what I might have been, nor can I ever be. Yet this body is stubborn in resolve. It will not cease. For death is a wily opponent, sneaking up on the unwary, yet eluding the deserving.

  Is there a God? An author of this madness? Take me if you are real. I would rather face your judgment than the condemnation of your people.

  Carina closed the book and pressed it again to her breast, the pain in its pages too great. Why had Father Antoine given it to her? Did he hope she might come to know Rose from its pages? What then? The woman was dead. But not forgotten.

  She recalled Quillan’s words for her. “My father was a savage, my mother a harlot.” Did the priest think she could change his mind? If Quillan read these pages, would he feel differently? Or would he think like any other man, that Rose was to blame for her condition?

  Carina stood up and stretched. Carrying the book with her, she walked to the entrance of the mine and looked into its darkness. She had no desire to go farther or see the shaft down which she’d fallen. She turned from the hole in the mountain and started back up the slope. Beside the gravestone, she sat down and returned to the journal.

  March 15, 1851 What is a lie bu
t a shade of the truth? Yet I am the basest of liars to think I would end my life because of the life inside me. It grows stronger each day, defying the shame with which it was conceived. Because it lives—I live. I am bound to the child inside by a force beyond my control, and it shames me to say I’m glad for it. What monster could kill the child of her womb even if she hates her own self for conceiving it?

  Tonight I leave. For I will not bring the shame upon my house, my loving father and mother. It would break their hearts.

  Carina thought of her own parents. Mamma and Papa. What would they think of her? What would they say to her marriage? In marrying Quillan, she had gone outside her people, not sought her papa’s permission, Mamma’s blessing. Could they understand? Did she?

  March 19, 1851 I am lost and despair of being found. Believing a lie, I severed myself from all that mattered, leaving only the one within me to share my fate. Where will I go? What will I do? Who will take me in, wretched child of sin? I am wholly unclean.

  No, Carina thought. You were deceived. You participated in your ruin, but God is bigger than that. Only see the grace He offers. That grace even now brought Carina peace when the fear might overwhelm her. God had extended to her a mercy so deep and encompassing she longed to share it with Rose, to infuse it onto the page and have it change what happened.

  March 25, 1851 I am become most despised. Even the result of my forbidden love could not remain within me to be born alive. Had it done so, it would have looked upon its mother’s face in shame.

  Carina started. the baby died? Then it wasn’t Quillan at all. She expelled her breath and looked at the gravestone nestled into the grass and tangled vines of the mountain. What are you telling me, Rose?

  March 26, 1851 My mind is a blind guide. Why did I follow? I lie awake and wonder why did I listen, why couldn’t I see? Why did I risk everything for a lie? And more than that, why did I give my heart to the child of my folly? I am weary. I fear my feet will never light, for I bear the stigma of my deed. Though my condition will never show now, my own heart convicts me.

  “Go home,” Carina whispered to the faded and water-stained page. “They will forgive you. God will forgive you. Live, Rose. I want you to live.” She took up the book and pressed it to her chest. “I want you to live!”