Taylor moved silently past me toward the sofa. And as he passed, I thought I saw a shimmer of wetness on his cheek.
Ten minutes later I had two steaming cups of tea on the coffee table and the professor’s envelope in my hands. Barkly, my guardian mastiff, had given the package a perfunctory sniff and then stretched out beside the window, content to watch our guest from a cautious distance.
Taylor sat on the sofa and picked up his mug. He held it with both hands, all signs of false cheer gone from his eyes. He looked like a man who’d just lost his best friend, and I realized I had underestimated the bond between the older man and his protégé.
“I’m very sorry about the professor,” I said, sinking into the wing chair facing him. I wanted to reach out and pat his arm but felt too awkward to attempt it. “I know he meant a lot to you.”
“He was like a father.” Taylor’s gaze moved from me to the carpet. “Forgive me if I seem addled. I suppose I’m still in shock. This day has been a nightmare, with the questions and all the arrangements.” A muscle clenched along his jaw. “I have to handle everything; Professor Howard had no family. He never married, and his parents are deceased.”
“How awful. How did you know what to do?”
“I found an envelope at the front of his filing cabinet, and in it were all his last requests. His library is to be donated to the college, his personal effects are going to Goodwill, and he wanted his body cremated. He wanted no memorial service, no fuss.”
I couldn’t help frowning. “Sounds awfully Spartan.”
“That’s what he wanted.” Taylor’s gaze shifted to the envelope on my lap, and his icy blue eyes seemed to thaw slightly. “Since that package was on his desk, I thought he might want you to have it as soon as possible. It looked to me like he was clutching it when he died.”
A tumble of confused thoughts and feelings assailed me as I looked at the wrinkled package. Though the envelope looked new, it had picked up the smell of musty paper and old attics. It bulged at the sides, straining to fit around whatever the professor had slipped inside.
“What do you suppose it is?” I asked, almost afraid to open it. “He wasn’t still checking up on Cahira O’Connor for me, was he?”
“He may have been.” Taylor stretched one arm along the back of the sofa as he shifted to watch me. “I know he was disappointed when I told him you hadn’t mentioned anything about plans to work on Flanna O’Connor’s story. I know he was most curious to learn as much as he could … as quickly as he could.”
My blood ran thick with guilt. I had not even begun to work on Flanna O’Connor, reasoning that two novel-sized manuscripts on the O’Connor heirs was more than enough research for one lifetime. After all, I had a job, college classes, and a life, for heaven’s sake. And though the professor had been fascinated by the story of Cahira’s deathbed prayer, I didn’t really want to believe I was one of her long-lost relatives. The first time I met him, the professor had been quick to point out that all Cahira’s noteworthy heirs had red hair with a piebald white streak, just like mine. But surely that was coincidence, the whim of chance, or a one-in-every-two-hundred-years caprice of nature.
“Aren’t you going to open it?” Taylor’s voice, though quiet, had an ominous quality that lifted the hair on my arms.
“I know what this is about,” I said, flipping the envelope. “Professor Howard thought that I was—that I am—one of Cahira’s descendants. Just because I have red hair with a white streak, he is—was—convinced that I’m going to do something of earth-shattering importance with my life. Well, I’m not. I’ll be lucky if I get a job at a newspaper. I’m no hero; I’m just me. I told him several times that I was only the writer, the one who could chronicle the stories of Anika and Aidan and—”
“But you stopped before the job was done.” His tone rang with a strong suggestion of reproach.
I opened my mouth to give him a sharp answer, then thought better of it. No sense in explaining that I was tired of reading and writing and research. People like Professor Howard and Taylor Morgan never wearied of such things. Taylor would rather spend the evening in a library than at a movie; maybe that explained why we never progressed past friendship.
“I’m sorry.” I offered the words as a heartfelt and belated apology to Professor Howard. “If I had known he wanted to know—that he only had a few more months … ”
“Open it,” Taylor urged, his voice flat.
My fingers trembled as I undid the clasp and slid the envelope’s contents into my lap. The envelope contained a book, its leather cover brittle and clouded with age, and a single sheet of letterhead stationery from New York University. I recognized Professor Howard’s tidy penmanship immediately.
My very dear Miss O’Connor, you may never know how gratified I was to learn of your work on the biographies of Anika of Prague and Aidan O’Connor! Taylor read your first manuscript and sat through what I understand was an invigorating depiction of your second, and he is most complimentary of you and your efforts. Kudos to you, my dear; you have done excellent work.
I also understand that you have taken a sabbatical from your work on the O’Connor descendants. While I can understand your need for a change of pace, I begin to fear for you, Kathleen. With every sunset, we are brought closer to the new millennium, and you must face the dawning of the next century as an heir of Cahira O’Connor. I cannot begin to imagine what wonders and terrors the next century will hold, but I know you will not meet the challenge unprepared. Through your work, I trust you have acquired Anika of Prague’s spiritual strength and Aidan O’Connor’s creative joy. I pray you will exhibit both of these qualities as you face your future.
There remains only Flanna O’Connor of the nineteenth century. I confess I was afraid you might begin your study of this young woman on a day when I would be unable to aid you, so I have done a bit of research to help you make a good beginning. We are fortunate, you see, for journal keeping was a favorite pastime of women in the Victorian era, and our Flanna was no exception. God has smiled upon us. Enclosed is Flanna’s journal, which I discovered in a Boston museum and purchased for your use.
I would not send you into the future unprepared, Miss O’Connor. You are but two-thirds equipped for the task that lies ahead of you. Take then Flanna’s journal, and glean from it the lessons you can. And know that I bear every good wish for your happiness and success in your endeavors.
With great affection and every prayer for God’s blessing,
Henry Howard
“He bought this … for me?” I dropped the letter on the coffee table and ran my hand over the rough journal, inhaling the scents of age and dust. If the book had come from a museum, the professor must have paid a high price. Astounding, the thought that he’d do something like that for me.
“I believe,” Taylor’s mouth tipped in a faint smile, “that the professor had begun to think of you as a daughter. He often spoke of you, and he cherished the few notes you sent him about your research.”
The few notes. I cringed, wishing I’d made more of an effort to stay close to the professor. Months ago when we first met, I had thought him an eccentric old man with a naughty penchant for redheads. Later I’d discovered he was a brilliant history professor with more compassion than the rest of my teachers put together.
Once he learned that the heirs of the Irish princess Cahira O’Connor were linked by a common thread, the professor grew terribly concerned for me. On her deathbed, Cahira begged heaven to allow her descendants to fight for right in the world, and thus far each woman who had inherited her red hair and white streak had also been bequeathed an unusual destiny. Anika of Prague, who lived in the fifteenth century, became a knight and fought against spiritual corruption in the Bohemian Hussite wars. Aidan O’Connor disguised herself as a common sailor to flee the corruption of Dutch Batavia’s wharf and later became a world-famous artist and philanthropist. And Flanna O’Connor …
My mind darted back to the single bit of information I’d gleaned from
the World Wide Web: Flanna O’Connor, a nineteenth-century Charleston woman who disguised herself as a soldier and fought in the Civil War at her brother’s side. Commonly known as the Velvet Shadow, she was as well known for her ability to rescue wounded comrades from behind enemy lines as for the singular pale streak which ran through her red hair.
Now I held the Velvet Shadow’s diary. I shivered at the thought, then turned the book and rifled through the pages. Line after line of a flowery script filled the yellowed leaves, the ink faded but still legible.
“I don’t know how complete the journal is.” Taylor tapped his fingers upon his knee in a meditative rhythm. “But surely there’s enough material to get you started. And I must say that I agree with Professor Howard in the notion that you’ve no time to waste. It’s nearly Christmas, with the new year not far behind.” He leaned toward me, his eyes soft with compassion and kindness. “What will you do, Kathleen, if you’re confronted with some great calamity in the near future?”
“Do you really believe I might be?” I gave him an uncertain smile. My heart warmed to think that Taylor Morgan cared, but I couldn’t help feeling a little disconcerted by the knowledge that he feared for my future.
“I don’t know what tomorrow holds,” Taylor said, rubbing a hand over his face, “and neither did the professor. But he had a great instinct for knowing how people would react in a time of trial, and you must admit that Cahira’s heirs rose triumphantly to face their unique challenges.” A faint line deepened between his brows as he sorted through his thoughts. “The professor would never claim to be a fortuneteller, but he often said that each age holds its own trials—each decade, for that matter, suffers from its own troubles. The Vietnam War dominated thinking in the seventies, terrorism influenced the eighties, natural disasters made news in the nineties. The coming decade will hold its own tragedies, and how do we know that you will not find yourself involved in something of vital importance? Professor Howard wanted to be sure you’d be prepared for whatever might come your way as an heir of Cahira O’Connor.”
I lowered my gaze, then tucked my legs under me, making myself comfortable in the wing chair. While Taylor sipped his tea, I opened the journal’s cover and turned a few pages.
The first entry was dated December 24, 1860. A slanting feminine hand had written,
This book is such a lovely gift! Roger Haynes never ceases to surprise me! Tonight I dined with Mr. Haynes and his mother at their fine house in Beacon Hill, and my homesick heart was greatly cheered by their merrymaking and many kindnesses to me. I could almost stop missing Papa, Wesley, and Charleston, but every time the wind blows I find myself listening for the pounding of waves on the bulkheads, the chattering of palmetto leaves, and Wesley’s boisterous laughter. How strange it is to celebrate Christmas so far from home!
Engrossed in spite of myself, I read on.
THE GOLDEN CROSS
PUBLISHED BY WATERBROOK PRESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921
The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.
eISBN: 978-0-307-45937-4
Copyright © 1998 by Angela Elwell Hunt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.
WATERBROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.
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