The California Wife

by Kristen Harnisch

  “Of course,” Philippe smiled warmly, “there’s a path over there down to the creek.” Miss Carmichael nodded and wandered in the direction of the walkway. He took Sara’s hand, pulling her into the kitchen. He had a strange energy about him—nervous and excited at the same time.

  “Philippe, who is that woman?” Sara asked sharply.

  “She’s one of the teachers at the Protestant orphanage in San Francisco.”

  “Orphanage?”

  Philippe pulled out a chair, and Sara lowered herself into it.

  He remained standing, pacing the kitchen. He always thought best on his feet, she recalled. “I have some news, Sara.”

  Well, she thought, I have news, too. “Is it about Linnette Cross, your mistress?” she seethed.

  Philippe stopped short and whirled around to face her, clearly shocked. “Yes, it involves her, in a way.” Sara stiffened her spine, bracing herself for the blow. His voice was tender, but his words hit hard. “You know I ended my relationship with Linnette when I first met you. I didn’t know she was pregnant at the time. For two years, she didn’t tell me about the child. Last November, when she found herself unable to pay for her daughter’s medicine and food, she contacted me. I met the girl, and gave them some money.”

  Last fall? Last fall was . . . when Sara had lost the baby. Her head felt light. She shut her eyes and pressed her palms flat on the table.

  Philippe knelt down beside her and clasped her hands. “Sara, I didn’t tell you because you were so upset about our child. I didn’t want to rub salt in your wounds. I thought that if I told you, you might never recover from your depression.”

  She reviewed the clues in her mind. His preoccupation, the envelope of money she found in his closet. The lies were bad enough, but the fact that he’d fathered a child with his mistress was inexcusable. Humiliation lodged like a stone in her throat. As she stood up, the chair legs scraped the wood floor. She stumbled away from Philippe to the other side of the room, but he followed her.

  She pushed him away, scrambling for words. “Why did you want Aurora here? To keep me calm, to keep me from spitting in your face like you deserve?”

  Philippe looked at her like she was insane. “Get a hold of yourself, Sara.” He clutched her arms and began to explain. “Linnette died while we were in Paris. The child, a girl named Pippa, was placed in the orphan asylum. I found her on Saturday. I’m bringing her home to live with us.” He pointed to the door and continued, “That woman, Miss Carmichael, is here to ensure that our living arrangements are suitable. I invited Aurora to supper to serve as a character witness for us.”

  She stared at him, confused. So he hadn’t taken up with Linnette again, but this . . . this child—she was just another thorn on the same branch of betrayal.

  Miss Carmichael called from the front porch. “Mr. and Mrs. Lemieux?”

  Philippe planted a warning kiss on Sara’s forehead, whispering, “Please do this.” Without waiting for her response, he strolled over and opened the door.

  “Come in,” he said cordially. “I’ll show you around.”

  Sara’s feet remained rooted to the kitchen floor. Ten minutes later, when she spied Aurora coming up the front walkway, she ducked into the water closet. Sara couldn’t face her friend. She knew she’d burst into tears. Let him explain it to Aurora. Her own husband was forcing his bastard child upon her. It was unforgivable—so why was he so delighted?

  Philippe, Aurora and Miss Carmichael settled down to supper in the dining room. Sara busied herself with feeding Luc in the kitchen, so she didn’t have to sit across from her insufferable husband and pretend that she agreed with his preposterous scheme. Philippe was particularly charming, and Aurora played the part of the supportive, approving friend. Sara, on the other hand, barely ate, flitting between the kitchen and dining room as if she were treading on hot coals. She shuttled dishes to and from the table, but managed to avoid the conversation, including the discussion of the little girl.

  Miss Carmichael cornered Sara on her way out. “Mrs. Lemieux? Might I have a word?” Sara directed her out onto the porch. “From what Mr. Lemieux has told me, this must be a shock to you. Pippa will be three in December and requires extra care, as I’m sure your husband has mentioned. Before we finalize her release, I need to know that you agree to care for Pippa to the best of your ability, as if she were your own child.”

  As if she were your own child. But she wasn’t Sara’s child. Sara’s thoughts drifted to her baby girl, and her eyes sought the tree grove, where she could see the ring of white stones glistening in the late afternoon sun.

  She choked back the bile in her mouth. “I’ll discuss it with my husband.”

  “Do let us know, Mrs. Lemieux.”

  Sara walked back into the house, took Luc by the hand and marched upstairs without glancing at Philippe or Aurora. While Philippe escorted Miss Carmichael to a hotel in town, Sara read Luc his favorite book of verses, Penny Whistles, and tucked him in. Her head throbbed, and her shoulders felt like she’d been strung up on a meat hook. How could Philippe do this to her?

  Why couldn’t the girl stay at the orphanage? They could send money for her care. Was that so terrible? They already had the vineyards and their own family to worry about.

  She slipped her cotton nightdress over her head and brushed the knots out of her hair. Two hours later, she heard the kitchen door slam and the bolt slide. Philippe was in for the evening.

  Sara loosely braided her hair, brushed her teeth and slid under the sheets, facing the wall. She would pretend to sleep so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. Philippe creaked down the hallway, pausing as he normally did to check on Luc. When he came into their room, he placed the lamp on the dressing table and hiked his shirt over his head. Sara couldn’t resist a peek.

  His torso was lean, and his arms looked toned in the glow of the half-light. Desire stirred deep in her belly. That was the moment when it hit her. Linnette’s child was born the same month they were married. She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut. If he’d kept this from her, what else was he concealing?

  Philippe slid into bed beside her. Sara hoped she’d fooled him, but he called her bluff. “Sara?” His hand grazed her hip. She continued to glare at the wall. “Why don’t you tell me why you’re so unsettled?” He made it sound like she was overreacting. He had some nerve.

  “I know I sprang this on you, but it couldn’t be helped. Pippa needs a home.” It sounded like he was trying to convince both of them. “Is it because I fathered a child, or because I’m bringing her here?” He tugged on her shoulder, forcing her to face him.

  “Both—all of it,” she answered.

  “You brought up Luc as your own son. How is this different?”

  “It’s completely different. She’s a bastard, Philippe, born of your whore.” As soon as the hurtful words escaped her lips, she regretted them.

  Philippe sat bolt upright. His palms slapped his thighs. “You’re right, of course. Let’s blame the child for the sins of her mother and father! That’s the Christian thing to do.”

  “How do you even know she’s yours?”

  “I know, and you will too, once you see her.” The blade sliced deeper. “After everything we’ve been through, after I forgave you for my brother, can’t you do this for me? She’s my daughter, Sara.”

  Sara looked into his pleading eyes, and felt a hardness creep into hers. “No.”

  Philippe ignored Sara’s refusal and arranged for Pippa to arrive on the following Wednesday. Sara wondered if Pippa remembered her mother; she wondered if Linnette had loved Pippa like Sara loved Luc and the unnamed daughter who was buried beneath the pear tree.

  When she heard the carriage outside, Sara stepped out onto the front porch, leaving Luc at the kitchen table. He was driving his wooden truck to the edge, dropping it and cheering as it crashed to the ground. Despite her reservations, Sara would take care not to overwhelm the girl. She was even younger than Luc and none of this was her fault.<
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  Pippa squirmed from Philippe’s arms as they approached the front door, never taking her eyes off Sara. Philippe had forewarned her about the girl’s appearance. Her face was startling, but not horrifying, Sara thought. Pippa’s fair, fine hair framed her rosy cheeks and bright blue eyes—Philippe’s eyes. Sara’s heart dropped. Would their daughter have looked similar? Pippa was a scrap of a girl, all skin and bones. She reminded Sara of a monarch butterfly with a clipped wing—vibrant but vulnerable. Rose would need to fatten her up with crisp bacon and warm buttered biscuits.

  Feeling Pippa’s curious eyes upon her, Sara gave her a welcoming smile. The girl’s face brightened and she released a deep sigh.

  Sara was stunned when Pippa ran toward her and wrapped her arms around Sara’s legs, burying her face in Sara’s skirts. She tepidly touched the girl’s hair with her fingers, feeling a strange mixture of pity and shame. Sara’s eyes flashed to Philippe’s, now pink with emotion. He tenderly mouthed the words “Thank you.”

  For the next two weeks, Pippa would not leave Sara’s side. When she fed the horses, Pippa held on to her skirt with one hand and fed Lady an apple with the other. She giggled when Lady bent her head down, tickling the child’s palm with her rough tongue. As Sara picked the first apples of the season, Pippa was her field hand, collecting fallen fruit and gently placing it in the basket. When Sara used the water closet, Pippa stood outside the door, jiggling its handle, babbling in a dialect Sara couldn’t yet decipher.

  Though Sara tried to remain detached, each day Pippa found a way, with a sigh, or the gentle flutter of her dark lashes over her soulful blue eyes, to wind her way closer to Sara’s heart.

  A week after Pippa’s arrival, in a gesture obviously intended to make amends, Philippe handed Sara an envelope. “This is yours. Use it however you like,” he said. He watched her expectantly. “Go on, open it.”

  Sara gasped. She counted nearly seven hundred dollars in cash inside. “It’s not much,” Philippe explained with a shrug, “but it’s all that remains of my father’s estate.”

  As tempted as she was, Sara handed the envelope back to him. “No, Philippe. I don’t require anything.”

  “Please, Sara,” he pleaded. “Ease my conscience.”

  She wasn’t sure if he meant his guilt about Pippa, or about the pain his family had caused hers. Either way, his tortured expression compelled her to do as he wished. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  Sara felt both sadness for Philippe and rising excitement at the prospect of helping Maman and Jacques. This wasn’t enough money to replant Saint Martin, but it was a start. Sara would deposit the funds in the bank. This spring, she would collect thousands of phylloxera-resistant vine cuttings, encase them in airtight paraffin paper bags, pack them in moist sawdust and send them by fast express to Tours. Jacques and Maman could hire expert grafters and use the cuttings to replant the vines. She would write them at once.

  Chapter 19

  The new bedtime routine was a success. After a week of cajoling, threatening and bribing Pippa, Sara had thrown up her hands in defeat and allowed Pippa to sleep on a cot in Luc’s room. Luc was not thrilled with the prospect of his new shadow sleeping in the same room with him, but he generally regarded Pippa with the polite, detached interest a vaudeville performer shows his audience. This suited Pippa just fine.

  Tonight, Sara checked on them one last time before retiring. Pippa was curled up against Luc’s back, the two of them locked in deep slumber. The piece of Sara’s heart that remained cold to the girl thawed at the sight of them together. Pippa was her child—just as Luc was. Sara couldn’t believe that, at age twenty-two, she was responsible for two adopted children.

  Sara shut the door to her room and gratefully climbed into bed. Hours later, she awoke to Philippe tugging violently on her shoulder. “Sara! Sara! Get up—fire!” He threw on his breeches and flew down the stairs. Sara heard him ringing the fire bell with force: clang-clang, clang-clang, a pause, then one final clang-clang. He repeated the Eagle’s Run signal three times. Amidst the clamor, the horses neighed, dogs barked and bells began to toll throughout the lower county, rising up in a frantic answer to Philippe’s call for help.

  Sara could only see the orange light from the fire reflecting off her bedroom window. She ran to the children’s room. From their window, Sara saw flames jutting from the winery’s first floor. A shadow darted past her sightline, and crawled up the ladder to the second floor. What was Philippe thinking, running into a burning building?

  Glancing at the children’s beds, she saw Pippa was missing. Sara yelled the girl’s name, but she didn’t answer. Luc, roused by the commotion, rubbed his eyes and began to wail. Rose bounded up the stairs to comfort him while Sara charged out the front door, screaming Pippa’s name. She stumbled in her tracks. The block of vineyard closest to the winery, planted with cabernet grapes, was engulfed in flames, too.

  There was only one reason why Philippe would climb to the second floor of the winery. She rushed into the barn, and noticing two axes were already gone, grabbed the small pickax and a saw, and ran toward the winery. Choking on smoke, she scanned the winery’s perimeter and the field nearby for some sign of the girl. Surely Pippa would have enough sense to stay clear of the fire’s heat, but where could she be?

  Just then, she heard Philippe scream from the window. “Sara!”

  Sara threaded the pickax through her dressing gown sash, and held the saw’s handle tightly in her left hand as she maneuvered up the ladder, the flames nipping at her feet. The pungent smell of fermenting grapes hit her, and when she crawled through the second floor door, her feet plunged into a river of cool wine. Over the roar of the flames, Sara heard the boom and creak of Philippe’s ax smashing the vast fermenting tanks, releasing thousands of gallons of wine to flow across the floorboards, down the chutes and stairwell, to douse the fire below. Philippe was a madman, his face distorted with exertion as he chopped wildly through the thick redwood of the second tank, wading in wine up to his shins. Sara sprang to his side and raised her pickax, driving the pick into the wood, straining to pull the staves toward her. She was too weak to break the wood, and grew frustrated. She was relieved when Mac arrived to take over—she was desperate to search for Pippa and fight the vineyard fire.

  While the men battled the fire inside the winery, Sara sprinted for the stables. Her eyes swept over the inside of the stalls. There was no sign of the girl. Sara hitched the horses to the spring wagon, already loaded with water barrels and gunnysacks, and they burst through the stable doors. She drove the horses at a reckless pace where they did not want to go: toward the burning vines. All the while, Sara’s eyes scanned the ground. What if Pippa were out here in the dark? What if Sara accidentally struck her with the wagon?

  Smoke billowed into the indigo sky, consuming the great oak and choking Sara as she drove closer. The fifty-foot flames that had shot up from the winery had now diminished. Philippe’s plan to extinguish the fire with a year’s worth of wine was working.

  Sara stopped the horses in the vineyard, a safe distance from the fire’s edge, leapt to the back of the wagon and doused the burlap sacks with water. She jumped down with one in each hand, and began to beat the flames back. Within moments, she saw Philippe’s form back by the winery, dark against the orange swell of fire. Sara blinked back tears—he was safe, for now.

  Just then, she spied a long line of wagons racing up the road, gas lamps careening and horsewhips cracking. She knew each neighbor’s wagon, like hers, was fitted with three barrels of water and a dozen burlap sacks, as was the county fire plan. As they moved closer, Sara was shocked to see Boone Sumter leading the charge. His face did not register his usual hostility, but rather distress.

  Sumter waved his arms, directing the neighbors to roll their barrels to the right and left of the fire, and motioning for others to place a ladder on the oak tree and climb up to swat the flames out from above. The men opened the barrels and soaked the gunnysacks with water. In less th
an two minutes, they’d surrounded the spreading pyre and begun beating it back with a vengeance.

  The smoke stung Sara’s eyes. Wiping the moisture away, she scanned the base of the fire, and the wagon wheels, hoping to find Pippa. She saw nothing. A moment later, Sumter’s shout cut through the uproar, and he ran out of the smoke cradling a listless child. A wail escaped Sara’s throat, and she stumbled to reach them. She snatched the girl from his arms and ran her back down to the house. The fire was still far enough away, but it was spreading fast. With God’s grace, it would not reach the house.

  Inside, Rose sat at the kitchen table, rocking Luc, who had fallen back to sleep. Aurora, still in her dressing gown and coat, rushed in to Sara’s aid. “What should I do?” Sara’s voice cracked with desperation.

  “Bring her in here,” Aurora urged her, ushering them down the hall to the back bedroom. “Sit her up on the pillows. Close all the windows and cover any vents to the outdoors with wet towels.” Sara ran out to Rose and gave her the instructions. She couldn’t leave Pippa’s side for too long.

  When she returned to the child, Pippa’s eyes opened and she gasped for air. The rattle in her chest frightened Sara. The girl couldn’t speak, or even choke out a cry. “There, there, my love,” Sara soothed, kissing her blackened cheek. She patted her scraped knees and whispered, “You’ll be all right. Just stay calm. Tante Rora is going to make you some special medicine.” Sara forced a wobbly smile.

  Pippa struggled to catch her breath. Aurora pressed her ear between Pippa’s shoulder blades and listened. “She’s wheezing hard. Get some soap and water. Sponge off the soot. Start with her face, hair and hands. I’m going to the kitchen to mix a tincture and some tea.”

  Sara did as instructed. Meanwhile, Rose arrived with a glass of cool water, which she held to Pippa’s lips. The child guzzled it down so fast, half of it dribbled down her chin.

  Aurora returned within minutes. As she stirred the tea, Pippa watched with cautious eyes. “Aren’t you clever. Do you know what this is?” The child nodded between coughing jags. She seemed more alert.