A Rumored Fortune

by Joanna Davidson Politano

  Father sat on a short stool, poking at the dying fire in the stove. It was such a simple, everyday movement, yet so surreal. Shadows danced across his back as he broke the silence. “Have I ever told you, Tressa girl, which grapes draw—”

  “The gnats. Yes, Father. The ones that are pierced.” I adjusted on the lumpy chair. This was his answer to all my questions before I could even ask them—his secrets would not be breached.

  “Sometimes it’s best to leave a grape intact. That’s the safest thing.”

  “Safest for who, for you?” The trials of the last weeks had rolled over years’ worth of fear of this man, my tongue loosened more than ever before. Perhaps I owed Donegan Vance thanks for that as well.

  He grumbled and leaned farther away.

  “You owe me an explanation—you did a terrible thing and I want to know why. I cannot stop thinking about it and how dreadful it is.” Cassius’s face swam before my mind.

  “I owe you nothing.” His body stiffened, face closed off. “You’re entitled to protection from me, and that’s what I’ve given through Donegan Vance. Go back to Trevelyan and—”

  “It’s him we need protection from!”

  He spun to face me. “Has he hurt you?”

  The sudden surge of protectiveness surprised me and gave me undeniable delight, even in the face of his usual irritability toward me. With a deep breath, I told him about the fire at Prescott’s and Donegan’s double-crossing. “He has great need of money, and it seems he planned to find your fortune for himself.”

  The man’s frown deepened as my story progressed. “And has he? Has he discovered it?”

  “Yes.” I breathed out the single word. “He made off with most of it, leaving only a little so we’d think we found your fortune.”

  He turned and frowned into the little flames glowing in the stove. “Hmm.”

  “Have you nothing more to say about this? He robbed us!”

  After a moment of thought, he spoke. “Give the man grace. His intentions are good. He only wants to honor his word and restore his family’s land. He had a massive debt to settle, and he needed the money.”

  I shook my head, hardly believing what I heard. “I don’t care a whit if he needed the money—stealing is a horrible way to go about it!”

  He shrugged and looked toward the window. “Such is the nature of humanity.”

  “Father, you cannot simply let him take all that money.”

  He heaved a great sigh that flickered the little light on the table. “Come. Let’s walk and talk outside among growing things so I may speak to you about life and plants.”

  I dropped the blanket and followed him outside, my thoughts swirling, hope pricking in painful nettles. He led me down the stone steps and into the lush, mossy woods, whose coolness blanketed my overwarm senses with peace and calm.

  “Everything in nature is always in process, either becoming more abundant through pruning or dying by neglect. Donegan Vance has merely pruned something from us.” He stepped off the path, one boot planted on the smooth rocks bordering it, and held the lantern before a small tree. He pulled down on a branch the width of my finger, bringing its tip close to the ground. “Pretend there are heavy grapes weighing this branch to the ground. How long until a branch stretched this way begins to wither?”

  “A week, maybe two.”

  “But if a vinedresser removes all these shoots and grapes, what happens then?”

  A small trickle of betrayal wound through me as I so powerfully felt the pain of the naked branch that had been pruned of everything beautiful in its existence. “It’s stripped of life.”

  “No, and therein lies the miracle.” He released the branch and it snapped back into position. “Removing fruit takes the weight off this joint between the branch and vine so they can connect fully, and the branch can draw as much life as it needs. Enough to produce even richer, sweeter grapes when it’s strong. The grapes are good, but a wise vinedresser will cut off as much as necessary for the branch to snap back and regain the connection it needs to live.” He turned to look directly into my eyes. “So you see, when he prunes more and more from the branch, it is not a punishment. It’s not a slow death. No, my daughter, it’s an invitation.”

  “To what?”

  He ran a finger along the joint holding the branch to the tree. “To connect. An invitation to connect and draw an abundance of life—from the right source.”

  The word swelled over me and I closed my eyes to absorb it all. Connect. I saw that word in my mind’s eye swirling above my door, echoing in my heart for years. God had whispered it in my thoughts more times than I could count, but what did he wish me to connect with? He’d removed everything, one by one, until I had nothing left to cling to. No vine giving me life.

  “The branch may be satisfied with a mere trickle of survival, but the vinedresser wants so much more for it.” He stepped close and gripped my arm with gentle fervency. “I’ve always wanted so much more than mere treasure for you, Tressa girl. It’s a grape hanging on your branch, but it isn’t life. It depletes your life.”

  I studied his aged eyes. For him, though, that pruning had included removing Cassius. Had he pruned him away so that he might fully own the vineyard, attaching himself to the one thing that gave him life? I turned away from the glow of his lantern so he would not see my conflicting thoughts.

  “It was Donegan Vance who taught me that, when he tried to teach an old fool like me how to care for his vineyard. What I thought he was trying to kill, he was actually saving from a slow destruction. What Donegan Vance did by taking that money, and what you call the terrible thing I did of leaving you without access to my fortune, they are both a matter of pruning that was necessary. Taking away what’s good so you seek out something better.”

  I clenched my hands into fists in the darkening night. “That isn’t the terrible thing I meant.”

  He paused on the path, watching me.

  “Do you recall the name Cassius Malvern?”

  Shock splayed over his features, then anger. “Where did you hear that name?”

  I pushed back my shoulders and summoned courage to tell him about the notebooks, remembering that I thought him dead when I breached his privacy. “I’ve had Donegan translating your notebooks for me to read.”

  He paled in the moonlight to a sickening hue. “You deciphered everything from those?”

  I offered a tiny smile. “I speak vineyard.”

  With a groan he sank to a large stone and plunged his fingers into his wiry hair.

  “We also found the gravestone in the woods, beneath the old gate.”

  He remained still for several moments, shadows playing across his arched back.

  “How could you have pruned him away like a plant? How could you be so heartless?” My skin prickled with the impact of the most direct words I’d ever spoken to him.

  I waited for his reaction, my breath thin in the muggy night air. Distant birds called out and nighttime insects replied, joining into a chorus around us in those endless moments.

  Finally he lifted his unreadable gaze and turned to me, his face intense in the shadows. “Why does it matter so much to you? It happened before you were even born.”

  The words poured out of me then, the culmination of all my thoughts on this boy who had so haunted me. “Because you snuffed out the only person of value in this entire household. He refused to overwork and underpay the laborers, which made him a worthless businessman in everyone’s mind, but the only decent human being in mine. He may not have had keen business insight or your ability to be frugal, but that’s to his credit. He was suffocated up in that tower, snuffed out by people who simply didn’t see what he was because he wasn’t what they wanted him to be. And rather than trying to see him, to see past whatever differences you had, you killed him.”

  He turned away, muscles jerking in his shoulders.

  “Why, Father?” In the simple words lay a desperate plea for this once-beloved father to redeem hims
elf with a powerful explanation, a secret reason for his actions, a denial of my words . . . anything that might ease the wretched ache I felt by merely looking at him. “Was it truly necessary?”

  He raised his haggard face to look at me and said one word: “Yes.”

  He rose to his great height, towering over me in the dark woods, and I held my breath. What would he do to me now that I knew his secret? He took one giant step forward, his face contorted with emotion. I braced myself. Yet he simply bent down and planted a solemn kiss on the top of my warm head. “You see more good in everyone than they deserve.”

  A storm of thoughts and desires battled within me. “Please tell me you have an explanation for what you did. A very good reason.” My heart ached as I awaited his reply.

  He watched me with something sad glinting in his eyes. Regret? Tears left a narrow path down his cheeks. “I’ll leave you to find your way back. Tell no one you’ve seen me. Not even your mother. Don’t ever change, Tressa. Not ever. If you keep looking for good in the world, you’ll find it. Never forget that.” He handed me his lantern and turned.

  “Wait, Father.” I grabbed his hand. “You sound as if you’re saying goodbye.”

  He turned to face me with solemn eyes. “I’ve given you what I most wanted you to have.” With that, he trudged back up the path in the dark, his huddled form casting a long shadow that nearly touched my feet, once again leaving me behind as he had so many times before. When he was completely out of sight, I forced myself to walk forward toward the beach, my mind numb.

  I rowed in solemn silence across the placid channel, slicing my oars into the dark water over and over. Water dripped from the paddles as they rose, mixing with the sound of nighttime water creatures chirping about me. The image of grapes weighing down the branch played again and again in my head. How many grapes had I clung to that had done nothing but weigh me down and drain life from me? Faces flashed before my mind, everyone and everything that had been slowly pruned away. As I pictured the branch snapping back up to its natural position, I couldn’t help but wonder—what was left that I could even cling to? What was the vine that would provide life?

  When I had beached my craft and slipped along the moonlit path toward the house, I spotted the lone figure of our vineyard manager striding among the vines in the soft glow of his lantern. I clenched my fist around Father’s lantern handle and forced myself to remain calm, for it was the only way I’d gain answers. Perhaps Father could release so easily, but I could not. Donegan Vance had known all along my father lived, yet he listened to me pour out my pain to him day after day, encouraging me to lean on him, partner with him, open up to him. He’d insisted on standing in as my vine, yet in the end he’d merely sucked life from me like everyone else. With a word he could have ended my grief, but he bottled the secret that had been so important to me, all so he could find the fortune.

  And then he stole that too. What a fool I was.

  Swishing through the long grass bordering the vineyard, I blew out my light and approached from behind. I stood at the end of his row, watching him lift up great clumps of leaves to inspect the grape clusters while sipping steaming liquid from a dented metal cup. “I thought you didn’t drink tea.”

  He spun around as if I’d caught him stealing, his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “Some occasions call for a hot drink.” He sipped in silence, studying me down the aisle.

  “Where have you been all day?”

  “Making inquiries about obtaining new vine shoots from other regions, in case you must rebuild. It seems you do have one thing of value remaining in this vineyard. The trunks of the vines, I believe, will survive and sustain new branches, if we can bring them here. The current branches may fall away from poor grafts and the grapes will never grow, but the trunks are healthy. Like the true Vine of Scripture, it seems there’s something rather eternal and rugged about your vines.”

  I watched him silently, this man who spoke of Scripture so casually, as if he were truly familiar with it, and tried to conjure the same sense of peace and forgiveness I’d seen in Father, but I could not.

  Finally he looked at me and spoke again. “I believe congratulations are due. It’s been said that you found your fortune.”

  “That we have. Just in time, it seems.” I stepped toward him, my shoes sinking into the soil as the anger of the afternoon deepened in the presence of the one who had so deceived me. “You know exactly how dire the situation had grown.”

  “It’s lucky you have the fortune, then.” He lifted his cup for another sip and watched me, never showing a flicker of the many thoughts that must be brewing below the surface.

  I stopped just before him, looking up directly into his eyes. “I suppose you’ll demand your 10 percent now, for all the help you’ve provided.”

  He turned away, his face shuttering. “That isn’t necessary.”

  And in that instant, that self-conscious look of utter guilt told me the truth.

  “Don’t you have need of it? I seem to remember you telling me you’d only come for the money. Isn’t that true?”

  He discarded the cup on a post and turned toward me, taking my hands in his. “It was at first, but surely you know it’s more than that now. You can’t possibly wonder at my feelings.” His calloused hands enfolded mine, his thumbs exploring my palms with warm caresses. It was dizzying, this touch and his overpowering presence.

  My common sense told me to shove aside the burgeoning delight in the moment, but it warred heavily with a deep-rooted desire I couldn’t name or understand. What sort of hold did this man have over me that I wished to be passionately kissed by him and to slap him at the same time? My esteemed common sense would fail me when I stood before him in person and heard his deep, powerful voice so full of feeling. I felt suddenly that I’d believe whatever he told me in this moment, and that was dangerous.

  His fervent words spilled out. “I’ve only tried to do as you wished and keep my distance, but only because you asked it of me. If you only say the word, give me one reason to hope—”

  “Hope for what, another kiss? Marriage? What is it you want from me now, Mr. Vance? What more could you possibly hope to gain?”

  A hundred thousand emotions flooded his eyes in that moment, shadow and light playing equally off the planes of his face. “Nothing but you.” He grasped my arms with powerful tenderness. “I want nothing but you.”

  All the words in my head disintegrated as I struggled to keep straight everything I’d been so sure of a moment ago. It took every ounce of my conviction to plant my palms against his chest and shove him away with the force of my anger. Logic returned and I recalled the money he stole and the secret he’d kept. The only reason he still remained, pretending all this affection for me, was to cover his tracks so we would not follow him when he left with our fortune. No matter what good qualities he had, the man who would do those things was yet another thing weighing me down, depleting me. “Your first assumptions were absolutely correct. You have no reason to hope. None whatsoever.”

  Shocked, he blinked at me as pain seared across his face. My emotions teetered on the edge of victory and regret at the hurt I saw there, but this had to be done. He’d earned it, I reminded myself.

  “Tressa. What have I done to make you so angry?”

  “Do you think you’re still fooling me, Mr. Vance? You have a large debt, do you not? And my father’s fortune is how you planned to repay it.”

  Fresh guilt poured over his features, unmistakable and clear. “Perhaps I should have told you about the debts, but it hardly seemed important. If things had ever progressed between us such that—”

  “That is something you’ll never have to worry about. Nothing will ever progress between us except distance, Mr. Vance. I cannot tolerate dishonesty.”

  “I simply hadn’t told you yet. That isn’t dishonest.”

  “Hiding the truth is always a lie. Secrets come to light eventually, Mr. Vance. Even what is hidden away on an island.”
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br />   He stared at me, speechless and stiff, the giant secret out in the air between us.

  “Were you ever going to tell me he was alive? Or would you simply let me suffer endlessly?”

  His jaw jerked and he looked down.

  Yet I hadn’t the patience for him to gather a worthless explanation. I wielded my final words as pruning shears, severing this man from me. “You will finish the week here and then go, and don’t come back.” In that time, I would have his cottage thoroughly searched and have him arrested, but he needn’t know that now. Not while he was able to escape with it all. A small part of me hoped it would give him time to bring me the stolen money himself, proving his affection for me was genuine.

  Something fierce and powerful flashed across his face for a single moment as he looked at me. As he opened his mouth to speak, I put up one hand to stop him, for my resolve was weak as it was. “Go. Just go.”

  “Are you truly that stubborn? You won’t even let me apologize?”

  “It won’t change anything that’s already happened.”

  With another deep, penetrating look, he clamped his mouth shut, moved past me, and strode into the night toward the stables. Moments later, he and his stallion pounded from the barn and tore down the path to town.

  The loss left me unexpectedly weak, and I could not even rally to call the constable. Heartbroken, I sank onto the ground, leaning on a post as I’d done in childhood. Why did it affect me so? It wasn’t as if it was the first time I’d felt betrayal. I looked into the darkness where he’d disappeared. Perhaps it was because he’d become my vine, whether or not I’d ever intended such a situation. Strong and true, and often my only friend, Donegan Vance had invited me to cling to him, and without realizing it, I had.

  Now, with him so abruptly cut from my life, I felt cleansed and lightweight, yet empty. I was freed of entanglements and ready to cling to a single vine, but what was it?

  What’s left, God? To what am I even still connected that I might draw life? Who—