When Swallows Fall

by Gloria Davidson Marlow

  “What could you possibly have done that required her forgiveness?” he asked, his finger trailing gently down my cheek.

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I murmured. My eyes closed as I enjoyed the sensation of his roughened skin against my face.

  “Fee.” Somehow he made my name sound like some precious word of adoration, and I wanted nothing more than to give in to the lure of it. I felt his gaze on me, and I opened my eyes. Instead of him, however, the picture behind him was what I saw.

  I could almost believe the woman was me, but I knew better, as would anyone who knew us both. Although she had obviously ordered the artist to paint Tabitha without her flaws, Desi hadn’t thought to have him cover her own. She was as she had always been, a beautiful woman, held apart from those who would love her by some unseen war she fought within herself. Her eyes, at once laughing and sorrowful, bored into mine, and I wished with all my heart I had known how to help her find her way.

  Cade whispered my name again, and I forced my eyes from the portrait to his face. The sadness and longing I saw there filled me with fear and I backed away.

  “Good night,” I said, scooped my Bible from the floor, and hurried to my room.

  Chapter Six

  As the funeral procession wound its way up the incline behind the village church the next afternoon, I surveyed the sweeping view of the bay. Beyond the cemetery, on a short peninsula of land separated from the shore and Almenara by a rock jetty, the battered lighthouse stood sentinel. A balustrade encircled the uppermost parapet, and I imagined Desdemona there, so high above the seemingly endless expanse of water. I could well imagine how she had loved it there, with the sky stretched out around her as if she were a bird in flight. My mind took me to the dark thoughts I had refused to consider until then, and I imagined my sister, dark hair blowing in the wind as she balanced on the railing, arms outstretched beside her. A horrified cry escaped me as she leapt forward, her feet leaving solid ground and her body hurtling forward.

  “Ophelia!” Cade gave me a quick shake, as if trying to awaken me from a nightmare.

  Dazed by the vividness of what I’d imagined, it took me a moment to register the concern on his face and the shock on the faces of the people standing around us.

  “What in God’s name is wrong with you? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

  The words reverberated through my mind, and I shook my head in denial. My father had prided himself on his skepticism of all things supernatural and had sought to instill that same sensible disbelief in his daughters. He had his faith, of course, but was of a firm mind that ghosts and other such beings were nothing more than figments of overly fertile imaginations. I had questioned this principle more in the past twenty-four hours than ever in my life.

  Cade placed an arm around my waist and guided me to the grave without another word, although he cast several worried glances in my direction. I stumbled along beside him, fighting to keep my eyes averted from the lighthouse and the shore below.

  “Poor dear,” Mrs. Hartley observed kindly, “grief has whipped her mind into a frenzy.”

  “Aye,” a gentleman answered. “It’s a shame what grief can do to a person.”

  “Grief, bah. I don’t think it’s grief has addled her brain at all.” I recognized the sarcastic voice as that of Susan, the maid who’d witnessed that misbegotten kiss between Cade and me.

  Cade’s arm tightened on my waist, silent acknowledgment that he’d heard the speculations as well. Mrs. Hartley’s hiss of disapproval assured me that the woman’s sly innuendo would be dealt with upon our return home.

  I faced forward, willing one foot in front of the other. I had never wanted to do anything less than I wanted to face what lay ahead. I didn’t want to face the reality of my sister’s death or my own inability to break through the betrayal and heartache that had kept us apart for the last years of her life.

  No matter my reluctance to face it, however, we were soon there at the yawning hole that would be Desdemona’s final resting place, and with a nod from Cade, the funeral began.

  The village pastor, a short bald man by the name of James Arnold, began to read from the Twenty-Third Psalm, and I let the dear familiar words wash over me.

  “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,” Pastor Arnold read, and the words seemed to open up a dark cellar of questions inside me.

  If Desdemona had indeed been murdered, someone had killed her. In all probability, someone here in this circle of village folk, servants, and family was Desdemona’s mortal enemy.

  I scanned each face, wishing I knew them well enough to suspect or discount them, whichever they warranted. But I knew none of them save a handful of servants and the family members who lived at Almenara. Each member of the Scott family seemed to hate Desdemona with equal measure, and if I were ever to gain answers about her death, I needed to know why.

  A guttural cry jerked me from my reverie, and I watched in shocked fascination as a man rushed toward us. His clothes were tattered and torn, his dark blond hair long and unkempt. Around his shoulders he wore a cloak of the darkest navy silk, trimmed in what appeared to be dirty, matted ermine.

  Cade’s arm shot out, pushing me behind him as the man stopped between us and the open grave.

  “Murderers!” Dark blue eyes swept wildly between us, encompassing the whole group. “All of you are murderers!”

  “Devlin,” Eleanor said from behind me, “darling, you must calm down.”

  She pushed her way between us and came to him, her thick arm going around his shoulder and drawing him to her side.

  “Calm down?” he snarled, shrugging her away but coming no closer to our group of mourners. “How can I be calm when my little bird, my Desdemona, is dead?”

  He fell to his knees, his hands tearing at his hair as he sobbed out Desdemona’s name.

  I remembered then where I had heard his name. According to Mrs. Hartley, he was the artist who had painted the picture in Desi’s morning room. Only a man of extreme talent could have captured the wild beauty of the place through Desdemona’s eyes, making a simple picture seem like a glimpse into her soul. As was so often the case, it appeared that Devlin’s extreme talent went hand in hand with madness. I was more than a little frightened when he looked up at me with those burning eyes and whispered my name.

  “Ophelia,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. He came forward, his hands outstretched. “She told me so much about you.”

  She had told him about me? Desi had told no one else of my existence, had obviously never even intended for them to learn she had a sister, much less a twin. Yet she had told this man. I was stunned into silence as he took my hand, his long, soft fingers circling mine.

  He peered closely at me, his eyes mad with grief and something else I could not define, although I felt certain it was as close to real insanity as I had ever come.

  “You aren’t like her at all,” he announced, dropping my hand. “She told me, of course, told me you and she were only alike in appearance, but I didn’t understand. Now I do. You do not have the war in you.”

  “The war?” I managed to croak through my fear.

  “Darkness and light.”

  “Enough,” Cade snapped, before Devlin could say more. “What the devil are you doing here, Devlin?”

  Devlin turned toward Cade, his face turning cold with contempt. “I’m watching Desi’s final scene, my friend. The sum of your soul-killing remorse.”

  He threw back the cloak with a grand flourish, and I heard Lorraine’s sharp indrawn breath as a speck of silver flashed in the light.

  “That is my cloak!” she squealed. “How on earth did you come to have it?”

  His hands grasped possessively at the edges of the rich material, pulling it around him once more, and his eyes dared her to demand its return. When she remained silent, he smiled, and my breath caught in my throat. It was a somewhat evil smile, but it transformed his dirty, unshaven face into a thing of pure beaut
y. I knew with certainty why my sister would have been tempted by him.

  “My little bird,” he said, turning again to look at Desi’s coffin, tears brimming in his eyes as his hand touched the smooth wooden exterior. “She snatched and pecked, took what wasn’t hers and used it as her own. At least it was only a cloak she took from you.”

  With those words, he threw back his head and cawed, the sound echoing eerily across the cemetery and out over the water. Then, with the cloak flying out around him like broken wings, he dashed back into the forest from which he’d come.

  “Proceed, please,” Cade bid the pastor in an unemotional monotone, and Reverend Arnold picked up where he’d left off.

  My mind raced, making it nearly impossible for me to concentrate on what was said during the remainder of the service. Had Devlin known that our father always called Desi and me his little birds? Had he been so close to my sister that she would have shared those details with him? Had his feelings for her been mutual? Had he been Desi’s lover? Had he killed her?

  A large black man I had seen working in the stables at Almenara began to sing in a low, pleasing baritone. It was a song I had chosen because Desi loved it when we were girls. As we grew, Desi changed and her love for hymns or anything related to my father’s profession cooled. Still, I preferred to believe she had adhered to our faith internally, even if she rebelled against it outwardly.

  I glanced over at Cade’s grim face. Had Desi really loved him, or had it been her need to claim what was mine that drove her to him? He was staring intently at her coffin, brow furrowed and lips pursed. It was as much emotion as I had seen him portray over her death, and I found a strange sense of relief to see this small portrayal of grief.

  He lifted his gaze to mine, and my breath caught in my throat. It wasn’t grief that simmered in the dark depths of his gaze. It was anger.

  Chapter Seven

  Supper was waiting when we returned from the funeral, and Reverend Arnold and his very pregnant wife joined us at the table. Dennis Ames and Dr. Richard Scarborough also joined us, and I was quite relieved to have them all there. I felt certain there would be little likelihood of a recurrence of last night’s drama, with guests in attendance.

  We gathered at the table, Cade at one end, Calvin at the other, and the rest of us between them. Dennis sat at my left side and Dr. Scarborough on my right, and I was somewhat grateful to be sandwiched between the two of them rather than any of the Scott family. Perhaps if I endeavored to spend the meal talking quietly to my dinner companions, the others at the table would ignore me completely.

  Between Cade and Dennis was an empty chair, and I tried to imagine what the last meal Desdemona had at this table had been like. Had it been closer to what I experienced last night, or the tense, solemn affair we were now enduring?

  As silence lingered, the doctor leaned toward me to inquire about my wellbeing. He was a handsome man, with dark chestnut hair and eyes the color of warm brandy. I was aware he had been nearby when I envisioned the girl leaping from the lighthouse, and I wondered if he thought I might be as mad as Devlin appeared to be.

  “I am a bit shocked by Desi’s death and, of course, the nature of it, but I expect I will be fine, Doctor.” I offered him my most confident smile, although I’m sure it looked more than a bit forced.

  “Please call me Richard,” he bid me, and I felt my smile ease into more relaxed lines. “And I, too, was shocked by your sister’s murder. No one deserves to die in such a way, least of all Desdemona.”

  I was so overjoyed to hear someone express remorse over Desi’s death that I nearly hugged him.

  “Thank you,” I said vehemently. “And you must call me Fee, as everyone else does.”

  “But your name is Ophelia, correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I think I would prefer to call you Ophelia. I have liked the name since my very first taste of Shakespeare, and it seems to fit you quite well.”

  I felt a blush steal up my cheeks as he spoke, and I inclined my head slightly in agreement.

  “According to Desi, your mother was quite an admirer of Shakespeare,” Dennis said, and I turned to include him in the conversation.

  “My father always told us her love for Shakespeare was matched by her love of the theater.”

  “Miss Garrett, your father was a preacher, was he not?” Nellie Arnold queried brightly. She was dressed in a billowing dark blue dress, with a large ruffle around the neck and a significant number of smaller ones around the skirt. I wondered if it was the dress or her effervescent personality that seemed to overshadow the plain little man who was her husband.

  “Yes, he was the pastor of a small country church. He died five years ago.”

  “I’m terribly sorry. And your mother? Is she gone too?”

  “My mother died giving birth to us. My father never quite got over the loss, but he continued on as well as he could and raised us alone.”

  I once again wondered if the loss of our mother, accompanied by my father’s sad reservation and natural frugality, had intensified Desi’s reckless need for affection. Even as a small child I threw myself into studying at his side, taking part in his extended reveries with my own silence and introspection, while she ran wild outdoors and in. As I grew older, I joined him in his work, becoming his hostess and helper as he performed the duties of his calling, and Desi found things outside of our world to occupy her time. Over the years, he and I forged a friendly bond that he and Desi never had. He loved her, and she loved him, but they had a basic inability to connect with each other in any more than the most simple, mundane ways that parents and children do.

  “You have never married?”

  I was a bit taken aback by the blunt question, but I gave a halfhearted chuckle and shook my head. I had the feeling that Nellie’s inquisitiveness was natural and friendly as opposed to the calculated curiosity I had been subjected to by Lorraine since my arrival. “No. I tended to my father during a rather lengthy illness, and after he was gone, it just seemed I had somehow missed the boat.”

  “You’re not that old at all, and there is always hope,” she assured me, patting her husband’s hand and smiling fondly at him. “Look at James and me. I was thirty-two when we met three years ago, and had all but given up on the prospect of marriage, let alone love. But here I am, happily married and expecting my first child.”

  She ran her hand over the swell of her belly, a soft smile on her face.

  “Mrs. Arnold!” Eleanor’s scandalized gasp told me that Almenara wasn’t quite as distant from society as it would appear.

  “For goodness’ sake, Eleanor,” Lorraine drawled. “It isn’t as if no one’s noticed she’s pregnant.”

  “But to speak of it!”

  “I’m sorry if I have offended you, Miss Scott,” Nellie said easily, her lightly freckled face turning bright red and her hand dropping away from her stomach. I couldn’t help but notice that her husband’s hand caught hers, squeezing it gently before letting it go. “I just want Miss Garrett, and you, of course, to know that there is still hope. Love isn’t out of reach for either of you.”

  I could feel Cade’s eyes on me, and I prayed he would look away before I was forced to look in his direction. I didn’t wish for a replay of last night, including another set of questions concerning my decision to care for my ailing father and leave Desi behind with him.

  “Ophelia was in love when I knew her,” Cade said quietly, and my eyes flew to his face.

  “Cade, don’t,” I beseeched him, but he ignored me completely.

  “She fell in love when we were in New Orleans. I have never seen such a wondrous sight as Ophelia in love.”

  “What happened?” Eleanor again. Curse her.

  “I don’t know,” Cade admitted quietly, his eyes dark and questioning. “By the time I realized it was over, Fee was gone, Desi and I were married, and I never heard the full story.”

  All eyes turned in my direction as they waited for me to tell them the re
st of the story. When I realized they weren’t going to be satisfied until I said something, I cleared my throat and told them the most abbreviated version I could come up with.

  “He was supposed to wait for me, but something happened. The telegram I received only said he was gone but offered no explanation.”

  “Gone?” Nellie repeated in horror. “Oh, poor darling, how horrible. Did you never find out what happened to him?”

  “It was a long time ago,” I assured her, grateful for her obvious assumption my former lover had died. “I’m surprised my brother-in-law still remembers.”

  When I met Cade’s dark gaze, he had the grace to look away.

  ****

  After dinner, we retired to the parlor, a rather ornate and dark room, where I was once again reminded of how little the inhabitants of Almenara cared that my sister was dead.

  As if this were a normal social function, Eleanor sat at the piano in the corner, Lorraine stood beside her, and the two of them serenaded us with several lighthearted songs.

  When I had partaken of their gaiety as long as I could stomach, I rose from my seat and excused myself quietly.

  Cade made a move toward me, but I shook my head and left the room alone. Wanting to feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, I let myself out by the door at the end of the hall. Roses of every hue grew along the paths leading away from the house, changing from lush, double-bloomed bushes growing close to the house to scrappy, single-limbed vines as I neared the dunes.

  “Ophelia, wait,” Richard called from behind me.

  I wanted nothing less than company, but I turned toward him out of common courtesy and forced a smile. I was struck once more by how handsome he was as he hurried down the path toward me.

  “Do you mind if I join you?” he asked, holding out his arm.

  “Of course not,” I lied, slipping my hand into the crook of his arm as we strolled toward the shore.

  “I can’t imagine how their lack of mourning must hurt you. I’m sorry you must deal with such callousness.”