The House on Foster Hill

by Jaime Jo Wright

  Joel ran his hand along a shelf. He passed his fingers over a few old hardbound books, then dropped his arm to rub the hand against his pant leg, brushing off the dust.

  Feeling chilled, Ivy moved to close the window now that fresh air had invaded the room. “If I were Gabriella, I would have found the copy of Great Expectations here. In the library. Maybe even a writing instrument. One I would have kept hidden if I were being held captive.”

  “Stands to reason,” Joel nodded.

  “I would keep my infant somewhere as warm as possible.”

  “The attic?” Joel said.

  Ivy crossed her arms over her chest. “I thought so, at first, but where would she sleep? I think the cradle was moved, after Gabriella died. It only makes sense she stayed in the bedroom, where I found the book to begin with.”

  Joel wasn’t convinced. “Its bedcover is old, moth-eaten, and dirty. No mother would wrap a baby in that.”

  Theoretically, Joel was correct. “But, to keep the baby warm, she would. She would do anything for the child.” Ivy tried to put herself in Gabriella’s shoes, imagining what she herself may have done had she been in the woman’s predicament. “The nights are frigid, and there aren’t any signs of recent fires in any of the fireplaces. Necessity takes priority over preference. We need to search the bedroom again,” Ivy concluded.

  It didn’t seem Joel had any intention to argue. Rather, Ivy could sense he wanted her to take the lead, in case she remembered any detail, any smidgen of a clue that might bring life to this dead search. In a matter of seconds, they were climbing the familiar stairs to the bedrooms. Ivy shivered, reliving her tumble down them. She wrapped her right arm across her middle to where her ribs had been bruised. The skin was still yellow beneath her dress and corset.

  Joel’s footsteps echoed behind her on the stairs. Once in the hallway, she bypassed the first two bedrooms, so stark and empty. The portrait of the woman hung on the wall, only this time it was crooked. That’s right. She had bumped it in her tussle with her attacker. Ivy paused and stared into the lifeless eyes of the lady. Her dark hair was capped with lace, and her black dress, obviously of rich silk, was typical of a widow in mourning.

  “Mrs. Foster, I’d guess.” Joel’s voice in her ear made Ivy jump.

  She stared at the matriarch of Foster Hill House. “I wonder what she was like.”

  “Crazy,” Joel stated. “So I’ve heard, anyway,” he added. Reaching out, he swiped at a cobweb from the corner of the frame. “She was originally from Georgia and relocated here when she married Billy Foster.”

  “And that’s why she was sympathetic to the Confederacy?”

  “I would assume.” Joel wrinkled his nose at the woman. “She looks like a shrew.”

  Ivy tipped her head to stare into the woman’s painted eyes. Something in them moved her. It touched that part of Ivy that always connected with people, where others just saw the surface. “She seems haunted. As if grief and trouble defined her life.”

  Joel and Ivy gazed at the painting a while longer before Joel turned and entered the third bedroom. Ivy reached up and touched Myrtle Foster’s face, drawing a deep breath. Yes. The woman had not been happy. There was no joy in this painting.

  Ivy followed Joel into the room. Memories assailed her. Joel watched her carefully, as if at any moment something would come back to her in a rush and she would identify Gabriella’s killer and her attacker. But, there was nothing. No further recollections beyond the last ones she shared when they’d stood in this bedroom over a week ago. Ivy went to the bedside, looking down at the moth-eaten coverlet.

  Ivy knelt by the bed and bent to peer under it. Nothing.

  Joel spoke from above her. “There has always been something amiss with this house. I am beginning to fear Gabriella stumbled upon the truth of whatever it is.”

  She ignored propriety and sat on her rear, lying down with her back against the wood floor.

  “Ivy, let me.” Joel’s offer to scoot under the bed for a better look was chivalrous, but Ivy had already pushed her feet against the floor so that her head and shoulders moved beneath the bed’s shadows.

  “I used to hide my diary between the slats and the mattress.” Her voice echoed around her like she was in a tunnel. Dust tickled Ivy’s nose. Her dress would be ruined after this. “I figured you and Andrew would try to find it.”

  “We did.” Joel’s chuckle was distant, muffled by the bed that she had squeezed under.

  “You did?” She hoped not.

  “Unfortunately for you.”

  Ivy stopped her scoot and looked up at the dusty slats of the bed frame. Her mind raced with her childhood scrawling. They had mostly been about Joel, how she would marry him one day, and Andrew would live on their property, and the three of them would be blissful in their adulthood. She coughed from the dust. Oh, how dreams were thwarted by tragedy.

  Her attention was snagged by a piece of paper wedged between the mattress and a slat that stretched across the frame. She gripped the paper and pulled it free.

  There wasn’t enough room between the bed and her arms to maneuver the paper to where she could see it. Sliding out from beneath her confines and staying decent was going to prove difficult.

  “Turn your back, please.” Ivy instructed, clutching the paper in her hand. She fought the urge to scurry out from under the bed, regardless of propriety, so she could see what it was she’d found. “Am I safe?”

  “Yes.”

  She hoped he was telling the truth. Ivy pushed herself from beneath the bed, then sat up and righted her skirts. Joel’s back was turned in a gentlemanly fashion, his hands in his trouser pockets. He stared through the open doorway toward the hall where Myrtle Foster watched over them.

  “I found something,” Ivy announced. She twisted onto her knees by the bed in the position of prayer and laid the paper on the mattress.

  “May I look?” Joel still had his back to her.

  “Yes.” She unfolded the paper gently, her heart pounding. The words on the page were typeset. It was a page torn from a book.

  “What is that?” Joel crouched next to her.

  “I knew it,” Ivy breathed.

  Only God. He brings me hope. Where darkness swallows and death nips at my heels.

  “It’s written on a page from Great Expectations,” Ivy whispered, the moment too surreal to speak in a normal tone. “See? I told you.”

  Joel took the page and turned it over. There was another line of handwriting.

  Lord, save my baby from this pit that hints of hell.

  His jaw tightened. Ivy watched his mouth contort with some unspoken thought or emotion, then he tossed the page onto the bed. Joel cleared his throat and sniffed, running his finger under his nose. The words distressed him as much as they had Ivy. Neither of them spoke as they stared at the page on the bed as if it would begin to speak and Gabriella’s story would start to unfold. But there was nothing. No words. Just the silence of Foster Hill House screaming Gabriella’s cries.

  Joel marched past Myrtle Foster’s portrait.

  “Where are you going?” Ivy’s dress rustled as she hurried after him.

  “The orphanage.”

  “Whatever for? Mr. Casey said there were no unaccounted-for babies.”

  He didn’t respond but hurried down the stairs. Ivy gathered her skirts to hurry after him.

  “We’re not going to find anything at the orphanage that we haven’t already heard from Mr. Casey.” She couldn’t follow Joel’s line of reasoning, nor his urgency.

  Joel yanked the front door open, then stilled, his shoulders drawing upward in a heave of his breath. He turned, and his eyes drilled into Ivy. “But he has orphans there. A baby was left there, remember? What if we’ve allowed ourselves to overlook something just because Mr. Casey’s description of the girl who left it there doesn’t match Gabriella?”

  Ivy lifted her hand to reach for him, but dropped it as he glared at it. The situation was becoming even more personal
to Joel. Something inside him was warring against his past, just as she was.

  “But the baby at the orphanage wasn’t Gabriella’s. It was her own mother who left her there. She told Mr. Casey the baby was hers.”

  “I’m no longer convinced, Ivy.” Joel charged out of the house, leaving her to trail behind in a flurry of skirts.

  “Joel, wait!” She rushed after him. He arrived at the carriage they had brought to the house and untied the reins. Ivy helped herself into the carriage. Joel hoisted himself up and onto the seat next to her.

  The horse responded to the slap of the reins on its back. With a toss of its head, the gelding snorted and started forward. Joel eyed the hollow oak tree at the bottom of the hill. They rolled by it, and he pulled back on the reins.

  “What are you doing?” Ivy glanced over and noticed the white knuckles and how the reins were gripped in his fists. His jaw clenched, and a muscle in his cheek twitched.

  “Gabriella.” Joel’s voice was hoarse as he stared at the tree, the girl’s tomb. “I’ve never felt so helpless, Ivy.” He paused, then added, “Not since Andrew, and not since I was a kid.”

  Ivy looked away from Joel’s tortured expression. She knew being orphaned hadn’t been something he talked about much as a boy, but at times he revealed his questions of who his own mother had been, if she had cried for him or merely passed him along with indifference. He had come into his own and found his place in his faith and himself. But Ivy could tell that Gabriella’s ache resonated with Joel. More than theories and pieces of evidence, Gabriella was a human being who had experienced the kind of torment no one ever should. Her infant needed rescuing, something no one had ever done for Joel.

  “We need to visit the orphanage. I need to go deeper, not just accept what Mr. Casey says at face value.” Joel flicked the reins against the horse’s back. In an impulsive gesture, he reached for Ivy as he threaded the reins through the fingers of his left hand. Her fingers interlaced with his, and Ivy swallowed hard at her concession. She was accustomed to pulling away from him, but she knew, in spite of their own adversity, he needed that connection. In this moment, whatever held them at odds was overshadowed by Gabriella’s circumstances and Joel’s own pain. No woman should have to endure such terrifying conditions, and then to bear a child? For that child’s life to be cut short or to be abandoned? From the moment she’d read Gabriella’s writings about her babe, Ivy knew Joel imagined himself as that child. Orphaned. Alone. Maybe even left for dead. He understood the babe’s circumstances. He had been alone for far too long.

  She’d let him hold her hand. Ivy sat in the wing chair across from the orphanage director’s desk, but her eyes were on her left hand. Bare skin. Her fingers had intertwined with Joel’s like when they were children and she was racing ahead of him on the path and dragging him along behind. He’d often teased her that her feet had wings and she flew without thinking. She always told him thinking was too painful and one day he would learn to fly ahead of her.

  Joel shifted in his own seat as Mr. Casey entered his office. The director’s walrus mustache bounced as he wrinkled his nose a few times. Perturbed or an itch? Ivy wasn’t sure, but he did narrow his eyes when he saw her. Perhaps it would have been better for her to wait in the carriage or even the sitting room. She had no desire to sabotage Joel’s inquiry.

  “Miss Thorpe. Joel.” Mr. Casey eased onto his desk chair and tipped his head.

  “Detective Cunningham.”

  Ivy didn’t miss the inflection in Joel’s voice as he corrected his old guardian.

  Mr. Casey cleared his throat. “What brings you both here? Again.”

  Joel shifted in his chair. “I have more questions about the infant that was left here at the orphanage.”

  The director’s face remained placid. He folded his hands on the desktop, a tarnished silver ring on his middle finger. “Very well.”

  “You stated its mother was the one to leave it here?”

  Ivy glanced between Joel and Mr. Casey. They eyed each other with distrust, or maybe dislike. She wasn’t certain. Either way, an invisible thread of discord stretched between them.

  “She was.” Mr. Casey tapped his index fingers together. “I’ve already discussed this with both of you at separate times. I am not certain what more you think I can provide. This is not connected to the recent murder or to Miss Thorpe’s fascination with the victim.”

  Ivy bit her tongue and adjusted her attention to pull at a thread on the cuff of her sleeve, grime on its cuff from rifling through Foster Hill House looking for remnants and clues.

  Joel moved to the edge of his seat, his hair wavier than usual due to the moisture in the air. Ivy fought a smile. It gave him an especially rakish and impressive profile.

  “The mother’s name. I would like it please.”

  The addition of the word please was merely a formality. Ivy could easily read the demand disguised by the cool courtesy in Joel’s tone of voice. The glower of Mr. Casey’s expression indicated he heard it as well.

  The director leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking beneath his weight. He ran his hands down his coat lapels, worn at the seams. “As I told you on your last visit, I’m afraid I don’t have a name, Detective. But even if I did, that isn’t something I would merely hand over to you. We do attempt to protect the anonymity of parentage here at Oakwood’s Home for Orphans and Waifs.”

  “Of course you do.” Joel’s knee bounced now, evidence of growing impatience. Ivy resisted the urge to reach out and rest her hand on it.

  Mr. Casey raised a bushy eyebrow. “What are you implying?”

  “I would like to see my own records.” Joel’s knee bounced faster.

  “Your own?” Mr. Casey unfolded his hands with such a flourish it caused papers to fly to the floor. “Why ever would you want to see those?”

  “My own history. My parentage. I’m certain you require more than the mere disposal of a child here at your premises.”

  “No, we do not. Most parents who leave a child with us have no care for them, or perhaps do not have the wherewithal to provide for them. Sometimes they prefer anonymity.” Mr. Casey bent and retrieved the papers from the floor. “Whatever the circumstances, your implications are insulting. We have never hidden anything from you since the day you arrived here.”

  “As a toddler,” Joel stated.

  Ivy couldn’t resist any longer. Her hand landed softly on his knee. Joel stiffened and stared at it before raising his gaze to meet hers.

  This isn’t about you, Joel. She hoped her thoughts communicated through her look. He blinked and drew in a deep breath.

  “Mr. Casey, every child should have an opportunity to know their lineage. If the baby left here was not left by its own mother, then there are further pieces that must be investigated. I, of all people, know what it is like to travel through life with no evidence to support who I am. Is my last name even truly my own or did you simply make one up for me?”

  Oh goodness. Ivy had never contemplated such a thing. The idea that Joel Cunningham wasn’t his given name stunned her, bringing with it an understanding of why he was so insistent on having proof instead of assumption. His life was based on theory. It must be a miserable thing to bear.

  Mr. Casey cleared his throat. Then he cleared it once more, louder. He launched into the answers Joel was digging for while giving them a cold look. “The girl left with us was less than two weeks old. As for the woman who left her here, I truly have no evidence if she was the mother, outside of the fact that she claimed to be. She left no name. I did not require one. Her only message was that the girl was to remain anonymous. Only her given first name was offered.”

  “Which is?”

  Joel’s hand slid over Ivy’s where it still rested on his knee.

  Mr. Casey glanced between them. “Hallie.”

  Hallie. Gabriella’s daughter’s name was Hallie. Assuming it was her baby, and if so, how would they prove it?

  “Did the woman who left Hallie h
ere give you any indication of where she was headed?” Joel voiced the question that bounced in Ivy’s mind.

  The director sniffed and swiped at his nose with a handkerchief he’d pulled from his vest pocket. He crumpled it and stuffed it back in the pocket as he gave an agitated shake of his head. “No. No, she did not. But I suppose next you would like a description of her? I already gave it to Miss Thorpe. Brunette. Brown eyes. Shorter than Miss Thorpe, and round. Homely, really.”

  Ivy searched her memory. The description seemed familiar. While vague, something pricked in the back of her mind, as if she had known the woman in the past.

  “Were there any other identifiers?” Joel’s interrogation turned the annoyed glint in Mr. Casey’s eye to outright frustration.

  “No!” He slammed his palms on the desk. An exasperated snort escaped him. “I did not make a sketch of her either. I wasn’t expecting it to be of such interest that a wanted poster would be required.”

  “Why are you so defensive, Mr. Casey?” Joel’s knee bounced beneath Ivy’s hand again, and his fingers gripped hers painfully.

  “Because, my boy,” Mr. Casey said, shoving his chair back and rising to his feet, “you have been assertive and nosy since you were a lad. I wearied of you then and am still weary of you now.”

  “Are you hiding something?” Ivy interrupted, hoping to spare Joel the verbal knives Mr. Casey threw at him.

  “Of course not,” the director sputtered. “Except for a complete dislike of Joel Cunningham. And in answer to your other question, and in hopes that it will satiate your curiosity and end these confounded inquiries, I did give you your surname. Actually, Nurse Josephine requested you bear her name. She’d wanted to adopt you, but as an unmarried woman it was simply not possible.”

  Joel’s face paled. His jaw worked back and forth. Ivy’s fingers hurt within his iron grasp.

  “Nurse Josephine was the only one here who ever cared for me.”

  Ivy’s breath caught. Someone had once wanted Joel and been denied. He had been refused a family, a home, a mother.

  Mr. Casey made pretense of stacking paper work. “Well, we aren’t an institution of affection. We’re an institution of necessity within proper reason.”