by Beth Trissel
Still, Bailey wondered. She had to peek inside this room. Go, if you’re going, she urged herself, before she lost her nerve.
Anticipating furniture covered in dimly seen sheets, an icy chill like the inside of a mausoleum, and no signs of life except possibly a vaporous figure, she gave the brass knob a twist and opened the door. She stood stock-still. The room crackled to life like the fire burning in the hearth across the stretch of carpet right in front of her.
If she’d come here during the day would all be as she’d expected? Was she dreaming now, because seated before the fire in one of two leather armchairs was a young man, and not just any man. He resembled Edward Burke from the photograph in the dining room. Brown hair with a tendency to wave had grown back from the short military cut she’d seen beneath the cap he wore in the picture.
Instead of the Marine uniform from World War One, he was dressed in a rust-brown velveteen robe with a shawl collar worked in a multicolored print, the sort of robe gentlemen wore in pictures she’d seen of early Twentieth Century fashion. The plush cloth covered him nearly to his ankles. His stocking feet were shod in slippers of the same hue and propped on a padded footstool.
He glanced up from the book he held in long, slender fingers. His chestnut brows rose in a quizzical arch then drew together above narrowing brown eyes. “Did no one ever instruct you to knock before entering a gentleman’s bedchamber?”
Never for an instant had it occurred to Bailey she might be intruding. “Sorry—”
He waved aside her stammered apology with a pale hand then motioned to her. “Come in, now you’re here, and shut the door. Fierce draft tonight. Forgive me for not standing.” He patted his right thigh. “The leg’s flared up.”
She realized he was apologizing for not getting to his feet in deference to a lady. The husky edge to his voice and languor about his demeanor gave evidence of an individual who wasn’t at all well. His thin face, though not gaunt, bore signs of suffering and his eyes were shadowed with dark smudges. Most striking was the aura of sadness cloaking him.
Hardly aware of what she did, Bailey stepped further inside the room and closed the door behind her. But stayed still.
He ran his eyes the length of her and returned his scrutiny to her face. “The hour is late. Could you not sleep or are you wandering in your dreams?”
“Yes—no. I mean, it is, late, that is. And I awoke in the night. I don’t know if I’m dreaming. Forgive the disturbance.”
The slight smile crossing his face enhanced the attractiveness he still possessed despite his decline, and he had a quiet dignity that commanded respect. She wondered if she ought to address him as sir, but he seemed quite young, only four or five years older than she.
Wait—he was a great deal older, if he hailed from World War One, wasn’t he?
He coughed into the white handkerchief he held to his mouth then paused for breath. “As far as I can determine, you appear quite awake. Please don’t let the annoyance of an invalid distress you. I’m often out of sorts these days. You must be staying with the family for Christmas.”
She gave a nod.
“I’m Edward Burke, but then you already know that, don’t you?”
She swallowed hard. “Yes.”
Faint amusement curved his mouth. “Good heavens, as bad as that. What have they told you about me?”
She could hardly say Ella mentioned he’d died. “Little, really.”
He considered her. “So you came to see for yourself?”
“Yes—no. I wasn’t sure…”
“Of what you might find?”
She shrugged, helpless to answer.
“A trifle odd, perhaps, but I’m glad of company this night.” He laid his book on the oval, walnut stand beside him. “Please, come and sit with me. I assure you I’m not considered infectious.”
She hadn’t thought he might be, or that she could catch anything from someone in a dream. Was that a possibility, if she’d traveled back in time—
He broke into her thoughts. “Must be fatigue, but I fear I don’t recall your name, Miss?”
“Randolph. Bailey Randolph.”
He nodded as though familiar with her name. “Any relation to Charles Randolph?”
She startled. “Why, yes.”
“Good Marine. I fought with him at The Battle of Belleau Wood. As far as I know he’s still in France.”
Bailey assumed he must’ve been at that time and nodded.
Her most unlikely host continued. “At least the fighting’s over now. I managed to get myself injured shortly before Armistice Day.”
She vaguely recalled Grandpa speak glowingly of that day, now Veteran’s Day, when the Armistice was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. “Rotten luck getting hit so near the end of the war.”
“If luck comes into it. Are you Charles’s younger sister?”
She shook her head.
“Cousin, I suppose.”
Bailey hated to lie, but couldn’t tell Edward she was Charles Randolph’s granddaughter. In her nightgown she must seem to fit into the time Edward occupied, or thought he did. If he were a ghost, he was a very real one, and if this were all a dream, it still seemed best to go along with his supposition.
“Forgive me, I’m distracting you.” He muffled a cough with the handkerchief and waved at the armchair next to his. “Do have a seat.”
She started toward him, stumbling over her long hem.
“Easy as you go. Don’t need two of us down. I feel such a sloth sitting here. And to think not so long ago I was slogging through battlefields—” A jarring cough intruded.
“You really ought to be resting in bed,” she blurted out, and then considered she shouldn’t instruct someone of his authority.
“I appreciate your concern, Miss Randolph. But I prefer this posture before the fire.”
“Of course. Much pleasanter.” She walked to where he waited and lowered herself into the seat he’d indicated beside him. The leather cushion felt quite real beneath her.
He smiled wanly. “Isn’t that better?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
He swept his hand at the room. “What do you think of my confines?”
She cast her gaze over the elegant furnishings. A mahogany bookcase filled with leather-bound volumes lined the left wall; the glint of gold lettering in some of the titles caught the light. A gentleman’s desk and chair were positioned along the light brown wall to her right, and toward the corner stood a sizeable wardrobe. Family portraits framed in gold spread over the available space between the furnishings. One photograph above the desk caught her attention, of Edward and a sweet-faced young woman posed in their wedding clothes. He wore a dark suit and she was all in white with a veil and ivory roses on her head. They weren’t smiling, not the custom of that day to smile in pictures, but the pair seemed much in love.
This must be the cherished wife he’d tragically lost, but there was no evidence that the couple had shared this very masculine room. Apart from the coverlet embroidered with flowers on the stately four-poster bed, a woman’s touch was lacking. The bed was situated near the bookcase and several volumes were stacked on the bedside table. An Aladdin lamp on the stand shone over glass bottles of various sizes and colors with curious labels promising relief from various ills, and a small blue enamel and silver gilt pillbox. Quite ornate.
Among the assortment, she recognized the cobalt blue bottle of vapor rub. Musty books and medicinal smells mingled with kerosene from the lamp and wood smoke. Such heady odors for a dream. Edward smelled of soap tinged with camphor, as though he’d recently been sponged then slathered in ointment. And she sniffed the minty essence of peppermint.
The glass container on the chest of drawers held beautifully made hard candies such as those she’d seen in old fashioned candy shops. Perhaps the peppermints soothed his cough. On his bedside stand, she also noted a half empty glass of water, an untouched cup of tea in a flowered china cup, and several men’s
handkerchiefs. She made out the initials E.R.B. on one. That gave her a start. These were Eric’s initials. Eric Rowland Burke. Did the two men have the same middle name?
Although Eric’s face was thinner now than she remembered and lined from the injury he’d suffered in Vietnam, his color was better than Edward’s and his eyes clearer. Edward’s held the glaze of fever. Despite his limp and his cane, Eric seemed more robust. The man beside her wasn’t the least bit vigorous.
He seemed to await her reply. “It’s a fine room,” she said, “but you must weary of being in here day in and day out.”
“Unspeakably. Would you believe I was once adept at football and tennis, and won horse races?”
She could, but his question didn’t seem to require an answer.
He continued, almost as if speaking to himself, “but what one used to do has little bearing on the present, except as a sad reminder.” His eyes settled on her. Have they told you of my illness?”
“Not in detail. Is it very bad?” She knew full well it had to be.
“I had shrapnel taken from my leg and chest in a French hospital. Seems a fragment nicked my lung and I was slow to heal. So they sent me home. The doctor comes with his pills and potions, and my chest is pink from plasters. Ella doses me with cups of sage and honey tea, and horehound, but nothing does me much good.”
With a sense of disbelief, Bailey said, “I’m sorry.”
He shrugged as though the end was inevitable and he couldn’t be bothered. “Have you been to Maple Hill before?”
“Upon occasion for short visits. ”
“How long are you staying this time?”
She lowered her gaze from his intent focus. “I’m not certain. I arrived two days ago. I’m not really sure where I belong,” she confided, surprised that she had.
A thoughtful pause during which she sensed him plumb her depths, then he replied, “I see. Was that you I spied out the window bundled to the gills?”
She looked up in surprise. “Yes, but how—”
“I walk about a little. Spent my reserve for the day.” A hint of wistfulness tinged his dark eyes. “You remind me a little of someone.”
He reminded her of Eric, but she couldn’t say. Rather, she asked, “Who?”
His voice husky, he said, “Claire.”
“My middle name is Clarice.” She’d always despised it. “But I don’t suppose there’s any relation. Who is she?”
“My wife.”
Bailey’s heart sank. She hadn’t heard her name before. “She died, didn’t she?”
His eyes were haunted. “While I was away fighting in this infernal war. I never got to say goodbye.”
She bent toward him. “Is that why you’re here?”
He studied her as though she’d missed the obvious. “Where else would I be?”
“Of course. Never mind. Tell me what happened to Claire?”
“Ruptured appendix, I’m told. Infection set in and took her very fast.”
Bailey didn’t know what to say, or how to tell him all of this had happened quite a long time ago when he was in the grip of such raw emotion. “How dreadful.”
He paused again to cough into his handkerchief with a particularly violent spasm. Seemingly spent, he leaned back in his chair, eyes closed. Bailey wondered if he’d fallen asleep, and then he said, “If I’d been here, I might have gotten her to the doctor in time. They can operate on appendix.”
“If she was stricken all of a sudden and it ruptured quickly, there’s little anyone could have done. My uncle died the same way.”
He sighed. “We’ll never know. I hoped Claire might have left me something before she died, a note maybe. Anything. In her last letter she mentioned a gift. I thought Ella might discover where Claire hid it, but she hasn’t.”
“Maybe I could find her present for you.”
He opened glazed eyes. “This is a big house. Would you even begin to know where to look?”
“No, but I have little else to occupy myself with while I’m staying at Maple Hill.”
The faint stirring of hope in his expression reached into her heart. “Very well. I’d be grateful for your help. And think, perhaps, you are the ideal choice for this quest.” Another bout of coughing seized him.
He was taking a turn for the worse. “You really ought to be in bed, or the hospital.”
“I’d succumb faster there. The hospital’s overflowing with those wretches stricken by influenza.” He eyed her in warning. “Don’t even go into town. We have provision enough at Maple Hill. Folks are dropping on the street.”
He must be referring to the terrible pandemic of 1918-1919, Spanish influenza they’d called it. Millions died the world over, some within mere hours of taking ill.
“See those?” He waved his hand at the cut glass decanter and shot glasses on the top of the dresser. “Pour me a drop of whiskey, cuts the cough better than anything. And pour one for yourself. Join me in a nightcap.”
She rose and walked to the dresser. Lifting the cut glass stopper, she poured the amber fluid into two tumblers and returned to him. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Edward sipped his drink, head back in his chair, eyes closed. He sighed contentedly. “Excellent brew. 1902 Scotch whiskey.”
She sipped hers, the first time she’d tasted hard spirits, and coughed.
He looked at her and smiled. “I suppose it takes some getting used to, Miss Randolph.”
“Please, call me Bailey.”
He nodded slowly. “You must call me Edward.”
“Agreed.”
Lifting his glass in a salute, he said, “Here’s to our friendship.”
She clinked her tumbler to his. “To our friendship.”
“And to this rum old world,” he added, his eyes drifting shut. “God keep my buddies and see them safely home.”
Bailey murmured, “God keep them.”
He was fading fast and she had so many questions left to ask him. “Edward, did you and Claire share this bedroom?”
He shook his head. “No, the rose room. This was my study. I had the bed moved in here.”
“You didn’t want to sleep in the other room without her?”
“The emptiness was unendurable.”
The pain in his voice cut Bailey to her soul.
In little more than a whisper, he asked, “You will come back and see me again?”
“If there’s any way possible, I will.”
“You mean if I’m still here? I don’t suppose I’ll live to hear the bells ring.”
“Where, when?”
“In the meadow on Christmas Eve, to signal the coming of Good Saint Nick. Young John rings them.”
Young John must be Old John now.
“Bells ring the world over on Christmas. Perhaps I’ll hear them on the other side…”
Bailey set her glass on the stand and laid her hand across Edward’s. He clutched the handkerchief in his fist, his other hand curled around his glass. His skin was cold to her touch. “Hold on, Edward. I’ll find Claire’s gift for you.”
He fluttered his eyes and looked hard at her, as though focusing his vision. “Bailey, why are you wearing her nightgown?”
She caught her breath. “Ella lent it to me. I’d no idea.”
“Keep it. It suits you. More of Claire’s clothes are stored in a trunk, in the attic. Want you to have them…”
His voice drifted away, but Bailey had heard all she needed. Tomorrow she’d search that attic.
Chapter Four
As Eric suspected, he discovered Bailey in the room the family never used. Unaware of him poised in the doorway, she stood on the carpet in the center of the floor staring at the armchairs and closed up hearth. Only the gray light coming through the windows shed any illumination on this dismal December morning.
Everything in the room was as he remembered from the last time he’d stepped foot in here. The bed covered with a large sheet, the stand beside it, the bookcase, chest of drawers and dresser d
own to the gentleman’s brush and comb on the top were the same as they’d been for decades, but with a musty scent from being closed up. Yet, it wasn’t the wintry chill sending a tremor down his spine.
“Bailey.” He spoke softly, so as not to startle her.
She turned toward him. In her long, white nightgown, hair tumbled down around her, wearing that lost look, she bore an unnerving resemblance to the mysterious woman in Wilkie Collin’s classic mystery, The Woman in White. Eric fervently hoped the similarity ended there. As he recalled from the novel, that unfortunate lady had been unhinged.
Leaving the door ajar, he stepped inside. “We missed you at breakfast.”
She answered distractedly. “I wasn’t hungry.”
He limped to where she stood, the hitch in his leg a little less pronounced today. Maybe he was getting stronger. “Why are you here, looking for ghosts?”
“Or a door to the past.”
He tried to coax a smile to her trembling lips. “Did you check inside the wardrobe?”
“Eric, I’m being serious.”
“That’s what worries me.” Leaning on his cane with one arm, he closed his other around her shoulders and drew her against him. Such a natural act, and she accepted his embrace without pulling back. She smelled of flowers from her perfume and wood smoke. “Mercy child,” he said in his best imitation of Ella, “it’s as cold as a tomb in here.”
“It wasn’t last night.”
“You were here then too?”
“Not for long. At least, I don’t think so.”
“I don’t see how you could stand it here for long, unless you bivouacked in a tent with a sleeping bag. The furnace is barely able to keep the pipes from freezing in the house, let alone heat this unused space.” He limped to one of the armchairs and took Ella’s heavy, crocheted throw from across the high back. Returning to Bailey, he closed it around her shoulders. “As you seem determined to stay awhile.”
“Thanks.”
He was comfortable enough in his navy pullover and gray wool slacks, although it was strange not to be in uniform and he knew he looked rather ivy league. He circled his arm back around Bailey again. A thrill ran through him when she nestled into his embrace, and he hoped it was more than the need for warmth that drew her to him. His overpowering attraction to her made little sense. He only knew he wanted to help her and be with her, as he’d never wanted to be with any girl before.