by BJ Hoff
Certainly not for so harsh a place as this appeared to be. Again she strained to look but could see only a huge, jagged cliff, dense with enormous old trees, their heavy-laden branches waving in the wind like green banners.
“The house cannot be seen from here,” said Paul Santi. “Soon, though.”
He really seemed quite kind. He had made numerous rather transparent attempts to put Susanna at ease during the journey up the river, talking animatedly about his life, his work, and his own experience of coming to a new land. Apparently, Santi was not only Michael Emmanuel’s cousin, but functioned as his assistant as well. He had immigrated to the States only a few years ago, he explained, “at Michael’s wish—and his expense.”
Susanna turned away for a moment, closing her eyes to shut out the strange, austere landscape. A cooling mist from the river flowed over her. When she opened her eyes again, Paul Santi was watching her closely.
“This is…most difficult for you, no?” he said. “Such a big change. But it will be all right, you will see. Michael is so happy you are coming, and Caterina—she is fairly dancing with excitement! In no time at all you will be right at home with us.”
Susanna managed a smile. “You live at Bantry Hill, too, Mr. Santi?”
“Paul,” he corrected with a nod. “Sì, Michael, he brought me across, and I have stayed with him and Cati ever since. I help him with the music, you see. I am his eyes, Michael says.”
Susanna winced. In her anxiety over meeting her brother-in-law, she had temporarily forgotten his blindness. “I understand that he’s quite a fine musician, in spite of…everything,” she offered.
Again, Santi nodded, more eagerly this time. “Oh, yes, Michael is most gifted! He has built an orchestra”—he lifted a hand as if to grasp just the right word—“superba. He conducts. He composes also, wonderful music such as you have never heard! Even Bechtold says he is brilliant. Ah—but you must know all this from your sister.”
Susanna bit back a caustic reply. Deirdre’s letters had told her a great deal about Michael Emmanuel, indeed—but certainly nothing that would incline her to agree with Paul Santi’s euphoric rhapsodizing about the man. She took a deep breath and forced a benign expression. “Is it true that he no longer sings?”
She knew the answer to the question but deliberately tried to keep Paul Santi talking. She intended to learn all she could about the man her sister had married, the man who only a few years past had been hailed as the “Voice of the Century.”
Once extolled as the premier tenor of Europe, Michael Emmanuel had been well on his way to the same phenomenal success in America when a riding injury claimed his sight. So far as Susanna knew, he had never returned to the operatic stage.
Paul Santi’s reply was slow in coming. “Michael sings mostly for Cati these days. And in the church, of course. But the opera—no.”
Susanna studied Santi. He was a young man, probably in his midtwenties. He seemed a perpetually cheerful sort, alert and animated. It struck her as somewhat peculiar that, as best she could recall, Deirdre had never once mentioned him in her letters.
Now, for the first time since meeting him at the harbor, Susanna saw his features turn solemn.
“He left the opera because of his accident?” she prompted. Santi glanced at her, then looked away, straightening his eyeglasses a little with his index finger. “It is very difficult, singing and acting on a stage one cannot see.”
“Yes, I’m sure it must be,” Susanna replied, still watching him. “I can’t imagine how he’s managed to accomplish as much as he has, being at such a disadvantage.”
Santi turned back to her. “Michael does not know…disadvantage. You will see. Ah, here we are.” He gestured toward the shore as the steamer began to maneuver toward the dock. “A short carriage ride, and we will be home.”
Susanna looked around at the wilderness closing in on them, the fierce-looking cliffs and menacing sky. And once again she closed her eyes to ward off the sight of the wild, threatening landscape Paul Santi referred to as “home.”
4
BANTRY HILL
It seemed life held no future and no past but this.
LOLA RIDGE
Apparently, the carriage driver, Dempsey, was also a part of Michael Emmanuel’s household.
Paul Santi’s explanation seemed to indicate that Liam Dempsey was Michael’s “man”—a combination of household manager and caretaker.
“Dempsey,” Santi elaborated, “takes care of”—he paused and gave a light shrug—“everything. Whatever is needed, that is what Dempsey does.”
Susanna might have been relieved to see another Irish face in this strange new world she had entered, had that face been more congenial. But Liam Dempsey could have soured new milk with his bushy-browed scowl and gruff, taciturn manner.
The road itself was no less forbidding. Narrow and rutted, it seemed all twists and sharp angles as the carriage wound upward, then upward still more.
The difficult road notwithstanding, Susanna had to concede that the late summer foliage on either side was glorious. Despite the heavy clouds and afternoon gloom, the trees blocked out almost all other views, and the farther uphill they went, the more spectacular the scenery became. Yet it was a fierce, savage kind of beauty, one that she suspected might turn utterly bleak with the onset of winter.
As if to confirm her thoughts, a gust of wind shook the carriage. “We will have a storm soon, I think,” offered Paul Santi.
In spite of the sultry heat, Susanna shivered but didn’t move away from the window. A moment later, she caught a glimpse of a lighthouse tower and its cupola, but it was quickly gone, lost behind the dense trees.
They drove on, for the most part in silence, jostling over the pits in the road as Dempsey urged the horses at a much faster clip than Susanna felt necessary, or even safe. Startled when they hit a particularly hard bump, she cried out.
Paul Santi gave her a quick smile. At that same instant, they went into a sharp turn. The carriage pitched, forcing Susanna to hug the door.
“The road is deplorable, I know,” Santi said. “But we are almost there now.”
Still shaken, Susanna caught her breath and tried to anchor her hat more securely. Her hand froze in its movement. This was quite possibly the very road on which Deirdre had met her death.
Chilled despite the August heat, she glanced out the window of the coach. Her nails dug through her thin gloves, into the palms of her hands as she turned to Paul Santi. “This road…is it—” She stopped, her voice faltering.
He looked at her, and Susanna saw understanding, then sympathy, dawn in his eyes. “Yes,” he said softly. “But we have already passed…the site of the accident.” He paused. “I’m so very sorry, Signorina Fallon. It didn’t occur to me that you might want to stop—”
Susanna shook her head. “No, not today. Perhaps another time.”
Eventually, she would want to see where Deirdre had died. But not just yet. For now, it was enough that she was finally about to meet her niece.
But she was also about to meet the man who had made her sister so unhappy—so altogether miserable, in fact, that she had fled her home, even her child, in the middle of a raging, late-night thunderstorm.
Susanna took in a deep breath, steadying herself for whatever was to come.
At last the carriage slowed. They were passing over an ancient, ivy-covered bridge, its stone walls crumbling in places.
Paul Santi gestured toward the window on his side. “You will see the house in a moment.”
Susanna watched, but even after they left the bridge, she could see nothing other than a stand of towering pine trees. They approached a high stone wall, its gate supported by two monolithic stone pillars, and then, without warning, an immense manorial house rose dramatically into view.
Not a house—a fortress. Susanna caught a quick breath. No wonder Deirdre had found the place oppressive. Conspicuous in its austerity, Bantry Hill was more than a mansion, but stopped jus
t short of being a castle. It looked to have been quarried from river rock that would withstand the passing of centuries. Given the elevation of the grounds, the steeply pitched roofs, and a tower of several stories that rose off the far end of the main dwelling, the place almost seemed to touch the low-hanging clouds that hovered over it.
As they drew closer, Susanna allowed that her initial impression might have been too severe. It still appeared to be quite a grand house, but not necessarily such a forbidding one. Elms and stately old beech trees, as well as maples and oaks surrounded the structure. And evergreens: she could never have imagined so many evergreen trees on a single property.
A wide, high-ceilinged portico with massive pillars and carved balustrades rimmed the front and as much as could be seen of the south side of the building. Large pieces of wicker with chintz cushions graced the rambling porch, along with baskets and urns of greenery and late summer flowers. A glassed-in conservatory flanked the south side of the house, opening onto terraced gardens and small glades.
Although Susanna couldn’t see them from here, she knew from Deirdre’s letters there would also be extensive fruit orchards in back of the grounds, and stables. For in spite of—or perhaps, as her sister had suggested, in defiance of—the riding accident that had blinded him, Michael Emmanuel had refused to give up his stable of fine horses.
They advanced toward the front of the house, and Susanna caught sight of a marble wishing well, then a child’s white shingled playhouse. Her heart quickened at this reminder of her niece, and she found herself feeling a rush of anticipation. Then the coach finally came to a halt in front of the imposing stone stronghold, and her throat tightened with apprehension once again.
As if sensing her trepidation, Paul Santi lightly touched her gloved hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “Here we are at last,” he said with convincing warmth. “Welcome home, Susanna. Welcome to Bantry Hill.”
5
WELCOME HOME, DR. CARMICHAEL
But still our place is kept and it will wait…
ADELAIDE A. PROCTER
A weary Andrew Carmichael surveyed his office with a practiced eye. Clearly his receptionist, Myrna Glover, had not been in for quite some time.
It took two trips to carry in the deliveries and newspapers that had been piled up in the small entryway. Inside, dust appeared to have bonded to the furniture, while various leaflets and advertisements lay tossed at random on the reception counter and across the waiting room. There was no sign that human hands had wielded a duster or a broom for several weeks.
Only the examining room appeared to be in order. That stood to reason, since Silas Webster and Phin Carey had seen to Andrew’s patients at their own offices in his absence.
Andrew sighed. All Myrna had to do while he was gone was to bring in and sort the mail, tidy the reception area, and keep an eye on things. Little enough work for the pay.
He should have expected this. At her best, Myrna was lazy and indifferent; on her bad days, she was downright useless.
It would seem she had undergone an entire season of bad days.
Perhaps she had decided to seek other employment. If she hadn’t, Andrew decided that he would suggest she do exactly that. Without delay.
He checked the small pharmacy, where for the most part he processed his own remedies and, finding things as he had left them, crossed to his office and sank down on the chair behind his massive oak desk—the one extravagance he had permitted himself last year.
If he hadn’t been so tired, he would have got up and begun clearing things away. But he had been without food for several hours, and the dull throb that had been prodding at the base of his neck from early morning had sharpened to an ice pick, chipping away at the back of his skull, one piece at a time. He needed to go upstairs and rest before lifting a hand to anything else.
At the moment, however, the act of climbing the steps seemed more effort than he could manage. An ocean voyage might invigorate others, but not him. The sea air, followed by the onslaught of the city’s heat, had set his joints to aching with a vengeance.
So with a deep sigh, he shrugged out of his suit coat, loosened his tie a little, and leaned back in the chair. The office was silent and muggy, and it was all too tempting to give into the fatigue and malaise that had settled over him. He could easily fall asleep right here at his desk, if only he didn’t have so much to do…
“Doc! Wake up, Doc!”
Somebody was tugging at his arm as if it were a bell rope. Andrew jerked awake, his heart pounding. Dazed, he struggled to focus. For a moment he couldn’t think where he was, only that the ship wasn’t rocking.
“Please, Doc, you gotta come! Sergeant Donovan said for you to come now!”
Andrew’s eyes felt as if someone had tossed sand in them. He stared at the little Negro boy with the dirty shirt, shook his head, and came fully alert. The child was Georgie Pride, a round-faced, wide-eyed youth who lived on the street and earned his keep by shining shoes or running errands for the merchants.
The clanging of fire bells and shouting in the street outside pierced the air, and he sat up. “Georgie? What is it?”
“Fire over to Mrs. Bedford’s boardinghouse, Doc! Sergeant Donovan said you were back. Said you need to come!”
Andrew scrambled out of his chair. A glance at his pocket watch showed him it was close on three o’clock. He had slept for over two hours!
He looked around for his case, but Georgie already had it in hand. “C’mon, Doc!”
Not bothering with his suit coat, Andrew followed the boy out of the office. Outside, the acrid smell of smoke clung to the damp August heat like a singed veil. As they took off at a clip, a fire wagon passed them, bells clanging furiously, the horses snorting and pounding the cobbles. A frenzied mob of people surged down Fourth Avenue—men, women, and children, shouting to one another as they went.
Two dozen or more young working women resided at Gladys Bedford’s boardinghouse. Andrew thought of them and picked up his pace even more, ignoring the hot shafts of pain that shot up his legs as he ran. By the time they reached Third Avenue, his throat and mouth felt charred with the taste of smoke, and his eyes burned from the ash raining over the street.
The scene was a nightmare unleashed. The modest, three-story brick structure was surrounded by onlookers, with still more gathering nearby. In an instant, Andrew took in the dense black smoke spiraling above the building, the exploding bricks, the white, panicked faces at the windows on the third floor.
Most of the windows were open, and the screams of the women could be heard over the din in the street. Glass shattered, and Andrew looked to the side of the building just in time to see another window exploding.
The commotion spooked a horse standing in front of the building, and the animal went bolting down the street, dragging its empty buggy behind. Some of the bystanders were screaming, many weeping, while others merely stood gaping at the building as if transfixed.
Two fire wagons were on the scene by now, with men passing buckets and hoisting ladders. Frank Donovan was at the front of the boardinghouse, with two other policemen at the side, trying to push the crowd back.
Andrew sent the excited Georgie across the street. The boy protested, but Andrew jerked his head toward Seitzman’s Bakery. “If you must watch, you do it from there,” he ordered. “No closer. You’re not to come back here, no matter what! Understand?”
He turned then and wedged his way through the crowd, heading for Frank Donovan. Flames were shooting up toward the roof. Women crowded at the upper windows, screaming and crying for help. Sparks and cinders rained down, and Andrew beat at the scorching ash with his hands as he made his way through the mob.
The policemen were shouting at the bystanders to get back, and although a few in the crowd began to retreat, most ignored the warnings and simply continued to stay where they were, gawking at the fire. At the front, Andrew saw Frank Donovan jump astride a dun-colored police mount. Hauling hard on the reins, the tall
, powerful figure drove the horse down the edge of the crowd, shouting as only Frank could shout when enraged.
“Get back! Get back now, you bloodthirsty fools, or you’ll be burnin’ right along with the building! Move, I said!”
The big Irish police sergeant pulled a pistol and shot into the air. The horse reared and shook his head in an obvious attempt to lose the wild man on his back. But Frank Donovan rode on, pounding down the row of bystanders, shouting and shooting well over the heads of the crowd as he went.
Within seconds, the crowd had dispersed, most of them withdrawing to a safer distance, some even leaving the scene entirely, though grumbling and cursing as they went. A few, however, merely crossed the street and stood watching.
Frank reined his mount to a halt in front of Andrew. His mouth below the dark red mustache was set in a hard scowl as he holstered his gun. “Vultures!” He spat the word out, swung down from the saddle, then turned on Andrew. “And what took you so long?”
“How did you know I was back?”
“Had one of the boyos watchin’ your building now and then,” the policeman replied. He grabbed Andrew’s arm and yanked him back. “Watch yourself!”
His dark-eyed gaze swept Andrew head to toe, and he suddenly grinned, a flash of white in the smoke-blackened face. “Well, welcome home, Doc,” he cracked, tipping his hat back on his head. “And about time, I’m thinkin’.”
Andrew ignored the jibe, noticing for the first time the group of women huddled off to the side of the boardinghouse. Many looked disheveled, their faces sooty and streaked from weeping. Some stood holding each other, while others appeared to be dazed, perhaps even in shock.
He turned to Frank Donovan. “Lodgers?”
The policeman nodded. “Aye. None seem in a bad way. Just rattled some, as you’d expect.”
“How bad is it, Frank?”
The other’s mouth turned hard again. “Worst of the damage is to the building. Some of the lasses weren’t home from work yet. Those who were, we got out in good time. But there’s still a few upstairs. They’ll have to jump, if the smoke don’t get ’em first. The stairway is burning, and there’s no steps down the back.”