Midnight Rose

by Patricia Hagan

  “Beautiful,” Erin murmured reverently. “Everything about it is beautiful.”

  He gave a soft chuckle. “Not everything, lassie. Some of the stories are real ugly. Like the famous outbreak of ‘human leopards’ just before the turn of the century that took place in the high country. Natives got dressed up in real leopard skins and went around dismembering victims—or eating them.”

  “Cannibalism?” She shuddered.

  “Not really. The purpose was for their group to gain strength, so it was said. Even today, one tribe will blame such a ritual on another tribe, the reason being it’s the worst thing you can say about anybody around here. It’s also said half the shipboard slave revolts were caused by the natives thinking they were being taken over the sea to be eaten.”

  Erin, who had heard of many legends also, offered one in return. “Africans who’ve never seen a white man think they’re a kind of sea monster, since they come from over the horizon in big ships, where they don’t believe there is any land.”

  “Sea monsters.” He gave a snort of disdain. “Well, they’re not far wrong in thinking that, are they?”

  Erin’s gaze raked the shoreline, cluttered with the thatched huts of the natives, the squat mud-brick government buildings. Now that the actual moment of arrival was at hand, she was starting to feel apprehensive. What if her mother wasn’t there? She voiced her fears out loud. “I don’t even know where to start looking for her.”

  “I think”—Captain O’Grady grinned and pointed to the crowd gathering—“she will find you.” He went on to explain how the arrival of a ship was a big occasion in the village. Everyone showed up at the waterfront to watch the unloading of supplies and possible new inhabitants—missionaries, workers, and, of course, freed slaves coming home.

  Erin was ready the moment the plank was in position. It was nearly dark, little time left to be recognized, especially when her mother wouldn’t even be looking for her.

  She was about to disembark when Captain O’Grady caught up to place a restraining hand on her shoulder and warn, “Don’t stray too far, lassie. Give me time to finish my duties, and I’ll go with you to look for her. We can check at the port office and ask to see the list of arrivals a month or so ago. If she’s here, we’ll find her. Just be patient.”

  But Erin had waited too long, and she stepped eagerly onto the plank.

  That was when she heard the frantic scream.

  “Erin! Dear God! I don’t believe it! It’s her! It has to be!”

  Captain O’Grady again grasped her arm, but not to hold her back. Instead, he was steering her as fast as possible down the slanted board to make sure she didn’t stumble and fall in her desperate, near hysterical descent to shore.

  Ahead, pushing through the crowd of onlookers, he saw the crying, shouting woman. A white man in a dark suit was guiding her, helping clear a path through the sea of bodies.

  At last, Erin and Arlene melted in an embrace that seemed to last forever to those looking on. Sobbing, weeping that they couldn’t bear to end the moment for fear it would disappear and not be real, after all, but merely another dream of torment.

  Captain O’Grady recognized the man who was accompanying Arlene Tremayne. Elliott Noland was the adjutant governor, in complete authority of the settlement when His Lordship the governor was away in the mother country.

  The two exchanged uncertain glances, not knowing what to do. Finally Elliott sought to draw them away from the harbor by offering his carriage to take them to his home. “Captain O’Grady, you’re welcome to come along. We can all have dinner.”

  “Yes, please,” Erin begged, turning to him, then remembering to introduce her mother.

  “No, no.” He shook his head, smiling, warmed by the love radiating between mother and daughter. “I’ve much to do back on my ship…” He was already backing away, unnoticed as Erin and her mother were lost once more in each other.

  Elliott took them to his quarters, a small but adequate house built of stone imported from England. The cottage was perched on a hillock overlooking the bay. He guided them inside as Erin marveled over how Arlene seemed to be glowing with good health.

  “You have color in your cheeks, and your eyes are shining, and you’ve even put on weight. I can’t believe it. And you haven’t coughed once!”

  Arlene looked to Elliott then. “Tell her. As you told me.”

  He was only too glad to oblige. “Doctors in England report consumption can be relieved by a change of climate. Your mother told me how she’d suffered back in America, in Virginia, and since she’s had few, if any, symptoms since arriving here, we can only assume our hot, humid weather has her on the way to being cured.”

  Arlene sat down on the little settee in front of the window. By day, the view was glorious, but darkness had finally descended, and only a purplish abyss was offered.

  “Enough about me.” She beckoned Erin to join her. “How on earth did you find out where I was? Did they get word back to you? The Free Soilers who helped me? And why are you here? What about Ryan…”

  She fell silent, for she knew her daughter so well, knew the anguished shadow that appeared in her eyes at the mention of his name was projected all the way from her heart. “Something’s wrong. Tell me.”

  Erin did so. From beginning to end. When she finished, they wept in each other’s arms once more.

  Elliott figured if ever two women needed a drink, they did. He picked up the little silver bell on the table by the settee to ring for a decanter of sherry.

  A few moments later, the servant responded—and promptly screamed.

  Erin shrieked, “Letty! Oh, God, Letty, I don’t believe it!”

  Elliott chuckled, shook his head, gave up, and went to get refreshments himself.

  Erin was forced to repeat her tragic tale to Letty, who then shared her own experience of traveling north and then across the Atlantic. Arlene joined in, and they were lost in recounting their adventures.

  Elliott provided the sherry, as well as a hastily concocted stew. But no one was really hungry, for they were too lost in one another, in sharing sorrow as well as triumphs.

  Then Letty asked the question Erin had known would come, and dreaded having to answer.

  “How is my momma?”

  Erin knew there was no easy way. “Oh, Letty…” she began. “I’m so very sorry, but—”

  She didn’t have to finish. Letty knew by the look on her face, the tone of her voice. She began to sob wildly and threw herself into Arlene’s waiting arms.

  “I wish I could have saved her as she saved me.” Erin went on to reveal how Rosa had rescued her from Zachary’s brutal assault but declined to admit it hadn’t been his first attempt. No need, she felt, to add to her mother’s grief over having been married to such a monster.

  She told also how Ben had escaped, how she’d helped him on the first part of his journey, and prayed he would make it the rest of the way. There’d been no word, no way of knowing his ultimate destination.

  “At least she’s at peace,” Letty lamented. “Can’t nobody ever hurt her again.”

  “Or us, either,” Arlene said with forced optimism and joy as she gathered both in her arms. “We’re all free here, and we’ve got a new life—together. Let’s just be grateful for that and promise ourselves never to look back.”

  Erin wished that were possible, dared to think in time perhaps it might mercifully come to pass. Yet, she was still haunted by the pain, the searing ache for revenge. But what stung the most was the undeniable fact she had loved him so.

  It was nearly dawn when they finally, wearily, ended their emotional reunion.

  Letty retired to her room to deal with her grief in her own way.

  Elliott showed Erin to a spare bedroom, adjoining her mother’s.

  Weary, worn, anxious for sleep, Erin could only wonder vaguely about why her mother was staying here, in the house with the adjutant governor of Sierra Leone. She hadn’t missed the way Arlene just seemed to glow when
he was around.

  Something was happening between the two, and Erin was pretty sure she knew what it was. She was gladdened to think her mother had been able to open her heart once more to love.

  As for herself, Erin knew the door to her own heart was bolted shut.

  Ryan had gone straight to his mother when Annie, along with Ebner and Eliza, yielded to her conscience and told him everything she knew concerning Erin.

  Victoria, however, maintained they were lying.

  “I’ll have them beaten! How dare they say I drugged that little trollop, that I had Ebner lie about your being here when you weren’t! That’s absurd!”

  He towered over her as she sat on the parlor divan, awaiting the arrival of the doctor Mr. Coley had promised to send.

  Ryan did not like the way he was feeling at that moment, as if he wanted to reach out and wrap his fingers around her throat and choke the truth out of her. “Yes, it is strange they’d dare lie about something so serious.”

  “I—I’ll have them beaten,” she said, repeating her threat. “They just want to make trouble.”

  “You won’t lay a hand on them. I gave them my word. I also promised to free them, pay their passage north to escape you and the likes of Zachary Tremayne, the goddamn son of a bitch!” His voice rose as he struck the air with his fist. “Now you tell me, damn it, what you know about Erin’s disappearance. And stop lying! I know you had Eliza lace Erin’s tea that night with laudanum. Then you had Ebner lock her in her room after telling her I was back and didn’t want to see her.

  “I also know,” he raged on, “that Eliza took the letter I’d left under her door and gave it to you, which means Erin never got it and no doubt thought I’d gone away without a word. Now what happened after that?”

  Victoria wished she could cry, but she couldn’t muster a single tear. She was too infuriated with Eliza and Ebner’s betrayal. It probably wouldn’t make any difference anyway, because Ryan looked as if he was capable of absolute mayhem as he waited for an explanation. Desperately, she groped for a way to absolve herself. “Did Eliza lie and say she didn’t see Erin coming out of the maze with a man?”

  “She told me about that night, but it doesn’t mean Erin was guilty of adultery, Mother.”

  Stunned that he could defend her, Victoria indignantly challenged him. “Well, what other reason would she have for stealing the diagram of the maze and meeting him out there in the middle of the night? And what about the rose at the grave? That was a signal. It had to be.”

  “It was.” He gave a curt nod. Annie had told him everything, and he knew the significance but wasn’t about to tell his mother. She had no business knowing Erin had been helping runaways, and now he found himself wishing they’d been close enough for her to share her secret with him, and also that he’d had the conviction to stand beside her and help.

  Victoria frantically wanted to know. “Then why—”

  “That’s not the issue, Mother. Now, I’m going to ask you one more time—what did happen to Erin? Where is she now? I know she didn’t run away with another man.”

  “The slaves know so much,” she said flippantly. “Ask them.”

  “They don’t know. You’d already banished Annie to the field and the compound and threatened to send her to auction if she dared come around the house again. I also know you sent Eliza and Ebner to the compound the night Erin disappeared. You obviously didn’t want any witnesses. Now tell me, damn it,” he roared, and she shrank back against the pillows in fear of what he might do. “What have you done with my wife?”

  “You have gone crazy!” she said with forced authority, for despite her squirming apprehension, she knew he’d never strike her, his own mother. “Ermine was right. I hope that doctor hurries up and gets here before you go berserk as you did that other time and start smashing things. I swear, Ryan, I’ll sign papers to have you sent away and locked up with the insane. I won’t tolerate—”

  “Do you even know where she is?” He grabbed her chair and shook it, afraid if he touched her he might actually lose control. “Or did you just pay somebody to take her away and do whatever they wanted with her? Was it Zachary Tremayne? Did you pay him to do it?”

  She leaped to her feet, pushed by him, and ran to the door before yelling, “I don’t know where she is, and I’m glad. You’ll never be able to find her. She’s gone from your life for good, and one day you’ll thank me.”

  He walked out into the foyer to stand and look after her as she rushed up the stairs. Quietly, ominously, he promised, “I’ll never forgive you for this, Mother, and if I don’t find Erin, you can forget you have a son.”

  He rushed to saddle his horse and ride out, oblivious to the chilling darkness. Despite his boiling urgency, he had to yield to the pace set by the stallion, lest he stumble and fall.

  As he rode, he tried to push down the rising ire over not being told sooner. But, as Ebner had attempted to justify, they’d all been too afraid. Eliza had even admitted her own selfish reasons for wanting the marriage to fail, but too late she realized the tragic consequences of her meddling.

  All right, he fumed amid the stygian cold, he knew that Erin had not left him for another man, but now he was faced with finding out exactly what had happened so he could go after her. He figured to get Tremayne to tell what he knew, and hopefully he’d have a clue as to where to start searching.

  At last, Tremayne’s house loomed against the horizon, framed by the light of a waning moon.

  Something, some invisibly creeping spider of foreboding, began to inch its torturous way up Ryan’s spine.

  What was it about that shadowed structure that birthed such sudden alarm?

  And then he knew.

  The silence.

  Like a giant fist choking and stifling the sound of every living creature in every direction, the silence was a suffocating blanket of terror.

  Ryan moved the horse forward at a steady pace, but he was glad he’d strapped on a holster and was armed.

  He rode to the front steps and dismounted. Making his way up, there was not even the noise of a distant cricket to break through the deadly still. It was as though not even the wind dared blow across this unholy land.

  The door opened with a creak. Stepping inside, he could smell the dust, the muskiness, of a house unkempt. “Tremayne,” he yelled from the dark foyer. “We have to talk. Now!”

  From upstairs, he heard the creaking of the heart-of-pine flooring as someone stirred. A moment later, there came the sound of footsteps in the hall.

  Ryan waited at the foot of the stairs. Gradually, he was able to make out the glow of a lantern, becoming brighter as the man bearing it came closer.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  Zachary Tremayne stared down at him from the second-floor landing, lamp in one hand, rifle in the other.

  Ryan did not mince words. “My wife.”

  Zachary realized that Youngblood’s being there could only mean trouble.

  Nate hadn’t told Zachary the details, but he knew Erin had been disposed of as Arlene had, and he was glad, because if he’d been able to get his hands on her, he would probably have beaten Erin to death for the scar she left on his face. But Youngblood, according to Nate, didn’t know of Erin’s fate; his mother had taken care of that.

  Zachary pointed the gun. “She’s not here. Now get out. I don’t want no trouble.”

  Ryan started walking slowly toward the stairs but kept his eyes on Tremayne. “Where’s your wife?”

  “She’s not here either. Now I told you, I don’t want trouble,” he repeated, an edge to his voice.

  “Tremayne, till I find Erin, everybody’s got troubles.” He started upward.

  Zachary backed away from the railing. “I swear, I’ll shoot. Now you get on out of here. I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Erin. All I wanted was to get rid of Arlene, so the voodoo would stop, and it did, ’cause I let the slaves know if it didn’t, I was gonna start peelin’ hide and hangin
g a few of ’em. And it worked, ’cause things have got quiet. Real quiet. And that’s the way I want it. Now git!”

  Ryan continued his ascent.

  Zachary watched in wary silence and kept the gun pointed.

  Even in the scant light, Ryan could see the hideous scar. “How’d that happen, Tremayne? Did one of your slaves finally give you what you deserved?”

  Zachary bristled, eyes narrowing with rage as he sought revenge for the disfigurement Erin had caused. “No, it wasn’t a slave, Youngblood. At least, she wasn’t one then. But I reckon about now she’s getting what she deserves, working as a fancy girl somewhere.”

  Ryan didn’t know what he was talking about but felt the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. “Maybe you’d better explain.”

  Zachary had slowly leaned to set the lantern on the floor so he could hold the gun with both hands. He could get away with killing Youngblood by saying the man had broken into his house. Or maybe he’d just drag him deep into the swamp and let him rot there. But first, he wanted to enjoy taunting. “Sure, I’ll explain, and then you’ll be glad you can’t find the high-yaller bitch.

  “You see.” He licked his lips in delighted anticipation of being able to tell him at last. “Arlene’s grandmother was a full-blooded Negro, so that makes her mulatto. You hear what I’m saying’, Youngblood? You married a woman with Negro blood! Why, she’s nothin’ but a slave passin’ for white, and you were fool enough to fall for it. But not me! I knew all along. Arlene told me before we got married, and it didn’t matter till she got so sickly, but I sent her where she belongs, into slavery. I figure that’s where your high-yaller wife wound up, too, and—”

  With a savage cry, Ryan lunged, and when he did, Zachary pulled the trigger. Ryan had anticipated that and dove to the side. As the gun fired, he felt the whizzing heat mere inches from his head. His arms snaked around the man’s feet and toppled him backward. They grappled for the gun, rolling over and over, and they kicked the lantern over but didn’t notice as oil spilled and flames shot across the floor.