The past was the past, and the last thing she needed was some love-sick man bent on winning her hand. It might hurt to be near her, but he was determined to be the friend Allie needed now, and nothing more. He was man enough to bear it, and busy enough that he wouldn’t be mooning around her like he had as a teenager.
Allie shifted Janey’s lolling torso into a more natural position against her side.
“Poor thing. She must be exhausted,” Thomas said, hoping that Janey wasn’t making the journey too uncomfortable for Allie. Her eyes had shadows under them as dark as bruises.
“The train car bunks are hard. The motion was quite soothing, but we woke stiff and sore every morning.” She smoothed Janey’s hair back from her face with a gentle gesture.
“I am sorry for that. My mother has just returned from a trip to New York and her carriage was very well-appointed, as she described it. As soon as we arrive, you must tell Mrs. Gibson that you’re very tired and need to rest.” Although something told him the housekeeper would never let Allie go without a thorough examination.
Allie laughed lightly. “I’m very sure I can tell her, but she will never let me go until she has inspected us thoroughly.” She smoothed her skirts. “When I left to live with Matthew and Eleanor in San Francisco, it almost broke her heart. She wrote me every week.”
Thomas mulled that over as he checked the large side mirrors. “When we, when she heard about the earthquake and the fire... There was no news coming out for such a long time. I don’t know how it was there, but here we just didn’t know…” If you were alive, he meant, but couldn’t speak the words.
He cleared his throat. “Mrs. Gibson never wavered. She knew you would come home to us.” He stole a glance at her and rushed on. “I mean to say, she always had a deep faith that God would protect you. She would recite the verse ‘even if I settle on the far side of the sea, your hand will guide me and hold me fast’.”
Allie turned her face to the side, as the sun eased into the rolling hill country. She took a tremulous breath. “I hate that she was worried. My mother wrote me and said that Mrs. Gibson was planning my return from the moment they got my letter.”
“Oh, and she hasn’t stopped since! You won’t believe the amount of food she has prepared. It’s positively frightening,” he said.
“I’ll stuff it in my purse, and my apron pockets, and up my sleeves,” she said, giggling.
“Your bonnet has room there above the brim,” he teased. “But you won’t be wearing that inside, of course.”
Allie’s smile slipped. She raised her arms and swiftly withdrew the hatpins, removing the deep blue silk creation. Her hair, with the deep honey tresses he remembered, was gone. What remained was darker and much shorter. It fell a little past her ears in corkscrew curls.
“Is that the new style out west? Your mother won’t be happy at all. At least with the hat, it covers it well enough. But why in heaven’s name would you use a dye? It was so beautiful...” Thomas’s voice trailed off at her expression.
“My hair was damaged in the fire. They had to sheer it all off and it grew back... like this.” She gestured mutely.
Thomas gripped the wheel and slowed the automobile, swerving to the side of the road. He moved the handbrake to the middle position and let the engine idle.
“What do you mean?” he asked, his gaze locked on her face.
“The fire, when my studio burned after the earthquake,” Allie repeated, the words coming faster now, “it damaged my– ”
”I heard that part,” he said and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Allie, I didn’t know. All I had heard was that you lost your home. I didn’t know about the studio...” He reached out and grasped one gloved hand tightly. Allie’s expression tensed and she carefully removed her hand from his.
“Janey had been up the street, spending the night with some friends of ours, an elderly couple who lived downstairs. They are like her grandparents. Mrs. Caffey had put her to bed in the living room, on a little mattress near the hearth.”
“Did they survive?” Thomas could barely ask the question.
She nodded. “He took a blow to the head and she injured her hand lifting a fallen armoire to get out of the room. Janey was completely unharmed, except for a deep scratch here.” She touched Janey’s little calve above her leather boot. “It healed so quickly, there wasn’t even a scar. At least, not on the outside.” Her face was etched with sadness. “It will be good for us to be home. Maybe by the time we are able to return to San Francisco, the city will have rebuilt, at least where our neighborhood was.”
Thomas worked to conceal his shock at her words. By the time they return? She isn’t home for good? He nodded, keeping his tone even. “I’m sure you are right.” He moved the handbrake forward again and the motorcar lurched back into the roadway. “We’ll be there very quickly now. Everything should be as you remember it.”
“Except the carriage house, of course,” she said, laughing. “How we loved to tag along with your father as he worked with the horses.”
His father. Thomas felt a pain near his ribs at the thought of him, but it was easier and easier every year to remember the good moments and not the illness that carried him away. Mr. Bradford hadn’t been well the winter of Thomas’s sixteenth year and by the spring he was gone. The only consolation had been Mrs. Leeds’ refusal to appoint another man to care for their team of horses, because Thomas was more than capable, a strong young man even then.
“Yes,” he smiled, “except for that. But the new resident has some young children that Janey might enjoy.”
Allie nodded, and turned her face toward the twilight outside the car window. His gaze flickered to her, roamed over her cheek and her neck, resting at last on the dark curls. So much had changed, for both of them. There had been nothing but bitterness at the end, then eight years of cold silence. But nothing was out of God’s hands and he was putting his hope in a second chance... with Allie, the girl his heart had never forgotten.
Chapter Two
Allie stroked her niece’s hair and felt hope rising within her for the first time in many months. Maybe Janey could be happy here. Allie certainly had been when she was young. She glanced at Thomas’s profile and thought of the fierce loyalty he had once shown her before he’d gone off to school, and his love had grown cold. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes but she blinked them away. Nothing mattered except for Janey. She would move to Antarctica and live on an iceberg if it promised the little girl a new beginning.
As Thomas turned onto the long driveway, Allie peered through the front window. She could almost make out the enormous shape of her family home in the half light. Thomas glanced at her and cleared his throat.
“Nothing has changed at Bellevue. Your mother had a new roof put on several years ago, but all else is the same.”
Allie nodded and wondered if he thought that was meant to be reassuring. Her family’s mansion had resisted change for generations.
“I don’t believe Mrs. Gibson has touched your sketching room. She closed the door and only opens it to dust,” he said.
She let the comment pass unanswered. The house loomed larger and Allie noticed that almost every window glowed with light.
“There is a weak branch that the gardener wants to remove but the old oak tree is still there,” he said.
Her eyes flew to his face, but his expression was passive, even bored. The oak was a constant in her dreams. Allie blinked back a memory of a young Thomas scaling that ancient oak, delivering flowers through her window for her to sketch when she was quarantined with a fever. A second memory burned brighter and her cheeks flushed. That birthday when Mama had forbidden her to paint, and then locked her in the room when she found the brushes wet again. It was her seventeenth birthday when an older Thomas climbed the enormous tree, delivering flowers once more with a shyer smile. She had crept out onto the branch, and sat beside him. They watched the sky full of stars rotate in the heavens, sometimes sharing their drea
ms, sometimes sitting in perfect silence.
Bellevue was named by her great-grandfather, who thought the French name sounded more sophisticated. The three story colonial looked exactly the same as she the day she left, down to the dogwoods lining the sides and the large lilac trees. The revival style mansion had always seemed so somber from the entryway. The long row of pillars rose up from the ground like sentries barring their way.
“Miss Allie, you’re finally home, finally here!” Mrs. Gibson charged out the front door and threw herself into Allie’s embrace. The soft crush of her arms made Allie catch her breath, but for once it was not in pain. She breathed in the familiar scent of vanilla, tea, and rose scented powder.
“Mrs. Gibson, it’s so wonderful to see you,” Allie choked out, her tears falling into the older woman’s soft, gray hair.
“I knew you would come home. I sure wish it didn’t have to be this way, what a terrible time you have had. But I knew you would be back before I died,” Mrs. Gibson said, still clutching her close to her bosom.
Allie laughed. “There now, what is all this talk of dying? You’re younger than Mama and we all know you’re going to have a very long life.”
To her surprise, Mrs. Gibson released her enough to look full into her eyes. “We never know, do we, how long the good Lord has planned for us. Long or short, it’s all been determined.”
Allie glanced back at Janey then and wished she could say something encouraging but the words stuck in her throat. Janey knew that life was short, and that love didn’t protect against tragedy.
“You will outlive us all, Mrs. Gibson, make no mistake.” Thomas came around the front of the motorcar, carrying Janey in his arms. The little girl wasn’t used to being toted like the small child she was and the glee on her face made Allie grin. “Now, let’s take our girls inside before they fall asleep in the driveway.”
Our girls. Allie felt her face flame.
“Oh dear, of course. It’s quite late, isn’t it?” Mrs. Gibson asked as she allowed Allie to lead her inside. “And you look quite handsome, Mr. Bradford. Is that a new suit?”
Allie heard Thomas mumble something. He must have a new suit made every week, as successful as he was now. Her lips quirked at the irony. For years she was the wealthy one and he was a poor carriage man’s son. Now she wore a faded dress and had barely a penny to her name.
“Your mother has just gone upstairs. Let me call her.” Mrs. Gibson hurried away, a round bundle of energy and purpose.
Allie stood in the large room and took stock of the familiar surroundings. The upright piano gleamed in the corner, red velvet covered bench tucked neatly underneath. Although there was electricity, her mother had always preferred gas lamps and the glass globes glowed brightly in the darkened room. Several large taper candles were lit in sconces near the piano. A slight musty smell of furniture not often used permeated the air. The rich red wallpaper, the oriental carpet her father had brought back from a trip to New York, the gilt framed family photos of her grandparents were all there. As if I stepped outside for just a minute and now I’m back, she thought with a shiver. And I have as much to show for it.
“Are you cold?” Thomas gently deposited Janey on the couch and picked up a folded blanket from the closest chair. She shook her head, lost in thought, but he wrapped the shawl around her shoulders anyway. “Sit down,” he said. “Just rest for a minute. You’ve had a long journey.” He peered through the doorway toward the stairs and his brows knitted together.
“I’m going to head to the kitchen and find Maggie. She’s the new kitchen girl,” he answered her questioning look. “Mrs. Gibson will have trays and trays of sweets ready for you to devour,” he promised Janey with a smile.
Allie waited until he left before she settled down next to Janey, pulling the little girl close. She should have felt comforted by the familiar room, but she felt as if ice cold water was seeping into her very bones. She shook out her chestnut curls, letting them brush against her cheekbones.
“Aunt Allie, isn’t this the most beautiful room? Look at that chandelier! Do you think we could light all the candles? That velvet curtain would make a perfect opera cape, don’t you think?” Janey chattered away as she inventoried every item in the large space. She didn’t wait for a response, which was just as well. Allie felt frozen in place, paralyzed by memories.
Scenes flashed before her. Telling her mother that she was leaving for San Francisco, Mrs. Gibson crying as if her heart would break. Mama furious, pale, and silent. Mama had never wanted Matthew and Eleanor to leave her, to move so far away. Thomas standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back, gazing out at nothing. He had only asked her to stay once, and then was silent. Day after day, month after month and not one letter.
“Here she is.” His deep voice brought Allie back with a snap. Thomas followed a young woman carrying a large tray arrayed with Mrs. Gibson’s delicate sugar biscuits.
Maggie ducked her head shyly in Allie’s direction and set the platter down on the small table.
“I’ll be getting the tea, Miss Hathaway,” she said, her voice low and breathy, as she backed out of the room.
“She seems nice, if a bit timid,” Allie murmured.
Thomas nodded. “She was employed by the Havisham family but there were some accusations. Completely unfounded. The police arrested her for theft and she spent a few days in jail. Mrs. Havisham found the missing jewelry but Maggie couldn’t find another position. I thought she would do well here, and she has.” He said the last few words a bit defensively, as if Allie would object to the girl.
She cringed inwardly, remembering how she once objected to a girl her mother had hired. The girl talked too loudly, clattered the dishes, and stomped around the house. Allie had told Thomas the girl was ‘improper’ and did not fit well with her family. To make a fuss over those faults seemed shallow and cruel now.
“I’m sure she has,” she agreed. Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
“Here’s the tea, Miss. Would you like me to stay and serve?” The young girl’s pretty dark eyes were wide with eagerness.
“Thank you, Maggie, I think I can pour the tea. Do you know if my mother will be down soon?”
Her eyes flicked to Thomas and back, then she whispered, “I believe she might be a bit longer. I will ask Mrs. Gibson.” She turned and fled the room.
Allie reached for the tea pot, her mind whirling. Was her mother refusing to greet her? Was she that unwelcome in her childhood home?
Just as she grasped the handle of the heavy china pot, Janey crawled up on a chair to touch a brass sconce in the wall, its candle dripping fat white drops of wax. “Janey!” Allie gasped. “Please don’t touch anything.” Her niece let her hand drop back to her side, just as hot tea poured from the neglected tea pot onto Allie’s tender wrist. She gave an involuntary shriek as her skin burned as if on fire.
Thomas leaped to grab the teapot, as it tipped and slopped more boiling tea over Allie’s glove, and up the sleeve of her dress. He set it swiftly on the low table and whipped a large napkin from the serving platter.
“Here, let me,” he said as he dabbed it against her glove and her sleeve.
Allie gritted her teeth, wanting to wail against the heat searing her tender skin. “I’m sorry, I was just distracted.”
“Auntie, I didn’t mean to make you spill!” Janey stood beside her, wringing her hands and blinking back tears.
“No, no, Janey. It’s alright. I’m just tired. I should have had Maggie serve us.” She tried to muster a reassuring smile. Janey was so easily upset. She needed to know it was nothing, just a tiny burn. But the pain was excruciating and Allie felt her brow grow damp from the effort of pretending.
“Let me remove your glove, it’s wet. We can put a cold compress over your wrist.” Thomas moved to slip off Allie’s glove but she jerked her hand away.
“Please, it’s nothing.” She stood and walked to the window, holding her hand gingerly against her. Staring into the eveni
ng shadows, she willed the pain to lessen.
“As you wish,” Thomas said, his voice subdued.
Janey sniffled and went to stand next to Allie, burying her head in her full skirt.
“Mrs. Leeds,” said Thomas, moving to the door of the living room.
Allie whirled around, her eyes seeking the mother she hadn’t seen for eight long years, the mother who had vowed to never acknowledge her daughter again.
The room seemed to pulse with tension. Thomas stood silently, eyes moving from Allie to her mother, and back again. Janey watched, eyes wide, as Allie moved toward her mother.
“Mama,” she whispered. Her voice came out so softly, not the strong tone she wished. Nothing like the voice she’d used the last time they’d spoken, here in this room.
She waited until Allie was near, then reached out with one hand, palm up. Her meaning was clear: come to me.
With a half-smothered sob, Allie rested her gloved hand in her mother’s and let herself be guided into an embrace. She seemed shorter than Allie remembered, her starched shirt front rasped against Allie’s cheek. The heady scent of freesia enveloped them. After several moments, she stepped back, wiping her eyes.
“Mama, this is Janey,” she said, motioning the little girl to come forward.
The older woman inclined her head and waited. Janey stood, staring up with her mouth slightly open.
“Janey,” Allie whispered, nudging her gently.
The little girl blinked, and flushed bright pink. She grasped the edges of her pinafore and bent her knees, one foot planted delicately behind the other. “My name is Jane Leeds. I am pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, her voice loud and clear, with the faintest tremble on the last word.
“You’re most welcome here, Jane. I am your grandmother.” The older woman turned her graying head, eyeing Janey for a moment. “She has her father’s hair, but the color is just a bit lighter. Don’t you think?” To Allie’s surprise, she seemed to be addressing Thomas.
All The Blue of Heaven (Colors of Faith) Page 2