Galveston

  “Yes, but it’s likely Betsey—my mother’s mother—intervened. Remember, she and Claire were very close. Of course it seems odd she would have allowed the conspiracy to go on either … I guess we’ll never know what her feelings were. Maybe she didn’t even know about the Garrets, was told some other family unknown to any of them adopted Charles’s and Mother’s child …”

  “Yes, and what if, things happening up to a point as they did, my father would not have been killed, but would have saved himself and Serena, and you. Why, you and I might have grown up alongside each other, maybe even in New York. Just think.”

  “No, I doubt they’d have ever attained custody of me. Remember, they’d have been scorned for their sins.”

  “Poor James. You’ve grown up as lonely as I have, and with far more reason.”

  “Loneliness is a state of mind, I’ve found. Willa, are you sorry now you opened up this Pandora’s box?”

  “No, I’ve lived a lifetime wondering and it’s time I had some answers.”

  The Tracy house on Avenue O in Galveston suggested only modest wealth. It was three-storied, with the inevitable big verandah and deep windows, the steep stairs and lattice-covered stilts. The house was painted a kind of murky green, with white trim, and it reminded me of the Heights house on a smaller scale, before the application of white paint and blue trim.

  I hadn’t thought much about Rodney for what seemed weeks, though it was a matter of days, and as we sat out front of the Tracy house while James double-checked the address, I knew I did miss him. Poor Rodney, meeting up with a screwball like me. What had he ever done to deserve that?

  The door was answered by a towheaded, blue-eyed boy about ten years old. From the moment the door swung open I felt a friendliness in the house, a Christmas atmosphere that comes only to a close family group. There were high-spirited voices in the background, children frolicking somewhere with their new toys. The mingled fragrances of roast turkey and mince pie and coffee wafted out at us.

  “May I help you?” the boy asked in grown-up tones.

  “I’m James Byron. I talked with your uncle Roy day before yesterday. Did he tell your mother about me?”

  She was coming now, a woman of forty or so whose beauty had mellowed with age, her hair, pulled back into a soft bun, beginning to streak with gray. “James, how marvelous to see you.” She took his hands like a long-lost friend, then looked across as he introduced me.

  “So, it’s true,” she said. “I never really believed she drowned, but to think there was a child into the bargain that summer. When Roy told me you’d called, I had a feeling … Come in, come in.”

  “Beautiful day for Christmas,” said James.

  “Yes, but the wind is so chilling off the water, just as always. That’s why I wear this shawl most of the time. There’s a fire in the parlor. Coffee and fruitcake?”

  “Wonderful,” said James. Neither of us had eaten since stopping in Sandersburg for breakfast early that morning.

  “She seemed unsurprised,” I said after Marybeth left the room.

  “Yes, but apparently she isn’t the one.”

  She was back in a few minutes, bearing a tray of fine, delicate china and linen cloths. “My husband has gone across town to take his parents home. They’d spent the night last night and eaten dinner with us today. He’ll be back shortly.”

  “It’s time you were told exactly what did happen the day Serena was supposed to have been killed,” said James, and I leaned back in the chair and sipped coffee as he spun the tale for Marybeth …

  “I’m looking for my mother now,” I said when he was finished, suddenly weary of getting there all the time yet never arriving. “We felt that I’m evidence enough she might be alive today, and we thought you might be the one responsible for getting her to safety that day of the fire.”

  “Me? Of course not. I wasn’t even back from Europe, didn’t arrive until a week later, just as I told James when we talked.”

  “I simply thought you might have been trying to protect her then,” said James. “It would certainly have been understandable.”

  “I would have. She was such a timid little thing and I was, well, shall we say I’d sowed my share of the wild oats by the time it all happened? I was thrilled to learn from her letters she had met this dashing young man … wish I’d saved those letters, and I could give them to you, Willa. You know, in those days little things seemed so unimportant. Anyway, I’d have done anything in my power to have been at hand to help her. I’ve regretted all these years I got back a week too late to save her. Of course, someone did, or she went off alone, which I doubt, because it wasn’t like her.”

  “We’ve already called Nick Weaver, from Grady, and he denied knowing anything.”

  “Nick? Oh yes, the organ player that I loathed. He was all wrong for her, you know. She knew it too, but before that summer hadn’t the courage to break away.”

  “Serena’s courage was reborn in Willa here, who’s left family and fiancé literally standing at the altar so she could trace down her past.”

  “But how did you get an inkling?”

  “Her carpetbag. My adopted parents saved it all these years. I found it on the eve of my wedding a couple of eons ago, or so it seems.”

  “Oh, I see. That’s good. It’s always better to do as you want, then you have no regrets,” she said, then took a sip of coffee and leaned back in her chair. “That was the trouble in those days. It was hard to break away. The social pressures were incredible on a young woman. She was expected to be a perfect, unblemished angel, to marry a fine man and raise her quota of children.

  “Well, I eventually came round to my fine man, and had my children, but I can tell you one thing. I did it when I was good and ready, and not before. I always tried to get Serena to break out of the shackles, but she wouldn’t. Then she up and did it that summer while I was gone. I was so proud of her.”

  I liked this person Marybeth. She had spirit. Had she had a background like mine, she would’ve proceeded in just the same manner as I was right now.

  “Well, I hope you find her, though I doubt it seriously at this point. I believe I would have heard from her eventually. As for Nick, I can’t see him helping Serena in such a clandestine situation, can you, James? I mean, he was so damned self-righteous. He would have just as soon betrayed her to Father Garret as to have taken the chance on committing a sin himself, wouldn’t he?”

  “Seems likely, only he was quite fond of her. Maybe he softened just a little when she was in trouble. He wasn’t entirely hopeless as a person, I don’t imagine.”

  She frowned. “Maybe not. Why don’t you look him up since you’re here anyway, and do a little prodding. He may know more than he lets on. It’s easy enough to put someone off from several hundred miles away on the telephone. He might not find it so easy if you approach him face to face.”

  “You may have a point there,” said James.

  “Wish I could think of someone else … Maybe our dancing teacher, Madame D’Arcy.”

  “I doubt it. Serena had had to quit lessons because her father had gotten behind in paying the bills. She was terribly embarrassed, and couldn’t face Madame.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that. How sad. No wonder she felt compelled to leave. There was really nothing left for her then, was there?”

  James and I exchanged glances, both realizing Charles’s financial help to the Garrets must have continued beyond his death, and only run out in the summer of 1899.

  “Apparently not,” said James. “Well, we’ll go now and try to find Nick. We’ve taken up enough of your time.”

  “Oh, I was hoping you’d stay long enough to meet my husband, Bill, maybe have a light dinner with us—leftover turkey. We have tons of it.”

  “It’s very kind of you,” I said, “but I’ve waited so long, I’m anxious to get as far with this today as possible.”

  “Of course, dear, I understand. I admire you for striking out this way. If your mother had a
latent trait of daring that only came to the surface for a short time, you’ve apparently inherited it, and it is a pretty good legacy to my way of thinking. I wish you luck.”

  “You know, her father had more than his share of daring,” said James.

  “Yes, I didn’t know him, but he must have. Does she remind you of Serena, James?”

  “Some, yes. I can see him in her too, though.”

  “Yes. She is Serena around the eyes a little, the height, the bone structure. Well, let me know what you learn, won’t you? I’ll be anxious to hear. And, by the way, we’ll be moving to Houston after the first of the year. If you wind up back there, Willa, do let me know. Bill’s in warehousing—light and heavy commodities—and he’s been negotiating for space along the Houston ship channel. As a matter of fact, that’s where we were till yesterday. As soon as the deal is set, we’ll be off. There’s no future here for that sort of business, if one reads the handwriting on the wall.”

  “So I understand,” said James. “Will you regret leaving here?”

  “A little. When I was younger, I found the island confining, archaic, you know, all those things that cause impatience in youth. Now I find it peaceful, and perfect for raising children. A person changes with the years …

  “By the way, when anyone discusses our leaving, I begin to think of the horrendous job of packing, and I just remembered something I want Willa to have … it’ll save me from having to take it. Just a minute.”

  She disappeared up the stairs, and came back right away, bearing a small porcelain music box with a dancer on top.

  “This is a gift meant for Serena that summer. I’d told her about it in a letter, and was going to give it to her when we returned. She was such a graceful dancer, you know, and as soon as I laid eyes on this in a shop in Italy, I knew she must have it. My daughter has begged me for it time and time again, but somehow I didn’t want to part with it, even for her. Here, let’s wind it up … there.”

  The “Blue Danube Waltz” began, the dancer turned round and round on tiptoe. We all stood there watching, as though expecting the toy to become my mother in the flesh, until finally it wound down and its movement was stilled.

  “You must have always had hopes she lived,” I said, taking it from Marybeth.

  “I guess I did. Always was an eternal optimist, I suppose,” she said, and her eyes were shining with unspent tears.

  “We’ll let you know as soon as we learn anything,” said James. “Thank you again for being so kind. You know, we tried to trace your father first, before I located your brother.”

  “My parents are dead. After the 1900 storm we moved up closer to Broadway, and that’s where they lived out their lives.”

  “That beautiful beach place then, the big house, destroyed along with the rest?”

  “Obliterated. The pier, bathhouse, everything. We were one of the families who took refuge at the Gresham house up on Broadway. Gresham and my father were acquainted, you know.”

  “I’m sorry about your house. I’d have enjoyed seeing it again.”

  “Well, at least it taught me a good lesson. Before that storm I thought myself quite invulnerable to bad luck. Guess everyone has to learn that error sooner or later.”

  “Yes, I suppose they do. Well then, good day. Merry Christmas.”

  As we drove away James said, “We can go by Trinity, though I doubt anyone will be around on Christmas Day. Confound it, we should have found out were he lived before I let him off the phone. Darned inefficient of me.”

  “I’ll bet that’s the only inefficient thing you ever did.”

  This exchange set us both giggling as we traveled the short blocks between Marybeth Tracy’s house and the gothic reaches of brown brick known as Trinity Church.

  There was a lone car out front, and James remarked, “If anyone is here on Christmas, by gosh, it would be Nick. I’ll try the door.”

  As he walked up I noticed the sky beginning to change. It was taking on that leaden look like the sky in Grady, and I remembered then it had felt chillier as we left Marybeth’s than when we arrived. The palm trees around the church were fluttering in the more and more insistent Gulf breeze.

  James was pecking the outside of the car window. “Come on in, I just poked my head in and heard organ sounds. It’s got to be Nick.”

  I walked with him up to the big doors, almost certain this, too, would be a dead end.

  The inside of Trinity Church was dark, not at all cheerful though banked with candles and flowers of the season. Why, I wondered, were all Episcopal churches so dark? We walked up into the chancel and waited for Nick to finish his hymn playing. He looked much as I had expected, closely cropped graying hair, rimless glasses, thin lips, pale skin. He was thoroughly engrossed, and didn’t realize we were around until he’d stopped to make a pencil mark on the music.

  “Excuse me,” said James. “Nick Weaver?”

  “Oh, you startled me. Yes, may I be of some service?”

  “It’s me, James Byron.”

  “Oh.”

  Then he looked at me and something registered in his eyes.

  “This is Willa. We’d hoped you might be free to talk with us. We’re still trying to find out who might have helped Serena that day of the fire, and maybe the three of us could put our heads together and—”

  “I’ve already told you my feelings.”

  “I beg your most humble pardon,” I said, and pulled out the picture of the Garrets. “If I am indeed a fraud, where would I have managed to pick this up? I also have my mother’s dancing shoes and some other things of hers. I can show it all to you if you wish.”

  He paused for some moments, then closed his hymn book. “All right, then. We’ll talk, if we must. There’s a diner around the corner, much more appropriate for conversations of this type than the sanctuary. I’ll just get my coat.”

  When the steaming coffee had been set before us, James proceeded to work on Nick Weaver in his thorough manner. “I think you know something, but aren’t telling. Now, why? Would you deny this girl a chance to know her real mother?”

  “Your mother is dead.”

  He’d said it so simply, offhandedly as though it didn’t matter. I felt as though someone had just dealt me a deathblow with a boxcar full of cotton balls.

  James glared at Nick across the table. “Look here, do you still insist she died the day of the fire?”

  “Not at all. She lived quite a time after that. I saved her, if you must know.”

  Chapter 14

  It was stuffy in the diner. My head had begun to ache. “For God’s sake, why didn’t you tell us on the phone?” I asked.

  “I would have been doing you no favor. Your mother was not the woman most people believed.”

  “I know more about my mother than you think. I’ll appreciate your just telling me the truth now, and leaving your opinions out.”

  “She came to me, at my house while I was teaching lessons that day, driving a rig like a maniac. I saw her from the window as she pulled up, and got rid of the students through a back door, before they saw her.”

  James cleared his throat and asked timidly, “Was she badly burned?” and I made a tight fist and silently uttered the first honest prayer of my life.

  “No. Mostly her hands, from covering her face, but nothing that wouldn’t heal with time. But she looked a mess—her hair all askew, her clothes wrinkled, face dirty. I asked her what in the world had happened, but she couldn’t seem to talk … just shook her head. First thing, I dressed the burns.

  “While I was wrapping her hands, she looked up at me like a little child and said, ‘It’s all over, everything’s ruined. You’ve got to help me get away from here.’ She admitted she didn’t deserve my help, but she said she had no one else to turn to.

  “The girl was near hysteria, and I brewed her some tea to get her calmed down. Then she told me the whole sordid story of her and Roman and their little plan to run away, then of the fire in the Seaside Pavilion and ho
w she escaped through the stage door they’d always used.”

  “Stage door?” James repeated.

  “Yes. Their own private door, from what she said.”

  “But her shoe heel was caught—”

  “No, it wasn’t. She faked that—it was a quick decision, she told me. She realized all at once it would simplify matters all around if everyone thought her dead … and she could hardly have taken you with her. As soon as she was satisfied of your safety, she exited through the stage door and fled.”

  “I see. Then where did you take her?”

  “Well, I’ll tell you right quick, I came very near going for her father.”

  “You would,” I said.

  “I should have. But she cried, carried on something awful. I was really crazy about her, stupid and foolish as I was. I finally acquiesced and got both of us a connection to Ohio, where my parents lived. I called for a replacement at the organ at the church, and left word for Father Garret my mother was ill and I had to go home immediately. I don’t know whether he lived long enough to receive that message. I suppose he did. I’ve always felt guilty for lying to him.

  “We left that night. Nobody saw us. I still harbored a notion she might marry me if I did this thing for her, and straighten up into the girl I’d known before she got fouled up … I don’t give up on people easily, you know. I took care of her until you were born. We lived at my parents’. I wrote in a resignation to St. Christopher’s and took a position up there in Cleveland at a little church.

  “Nothing would do but she have her child. What she would do after that was not discussed much. I tried to get her to give you up for adoption, to sign papers before you were born, but she wouldn’t hear of it, nor would she consent to marry me. She just kept saying, ‘After the baby’s born we can talk about it, but please now, just let me alone.’

  “You can imagine my parents through all this. My mother told friends we had a boarder, and Serena lived in an upstairs room, seldom coming down as she got bigger and bigger. It was unfair enough to have pressed her on them, but it would have been unforgivable to have let anyone see her in her condition. Why, it would have set tongues wagging … my parents would have never lived it down.”