Woman Without a Past

by Whitney, Phyllis A. ;

  How strange, I thought, that Honoria should have turned to Porter Phelps after being in love with someone as brilliant and creative as Nathanial had apparently been. Once more I glanced toward the cabinet of china figurines that I’d noted earlier. If Porter had “collected” Honoria, who looked as tiny and delicate as one of those Dresden shepherdesses, how had he felt when he discovered her unsettling talents and individuality?

  “No more talk about Nathanial!” Amelia insisted. “Molly, did you see the way Orva looked at you? I think she was stunned. I wonder if anyone told her you would be here?”

  Apparently no one had thought it necessary.

  “Tell me about her,” I said. “Who is she?”

  Charles answered readily. “Her name’s Orva Jackson—her married name. She grew up on the plantation and married a man who’d also lived here all his life. He’s dead now. She’s always worked here, except for a short time when she was your nurse, Molly, and stayed at the house on South Battery. Your nurse and Amelia’s. She was with you when you were taken. Even though I was a small boy, I remember the uproar. Someone put Orva out with an ether-soaked handkerchief and dragged her into another room to tie her up. Valerie was upstairs at the time. She came down to find you gone, and Amelia screaming. Of course, the police asked Orva a million questions that she couldn’t answer. Afterward, the family wouldn’t trust her to look after Amelia. She’s worked out here ever since, and just about runs things. Mother gives the necessary orders, but Orva does most of the work—with a little extra help. Her daughter Katy lives in Charleston now and has gone into other work.”

  No wonder Orva had looked shocked when she’d seen me today. I wanted very much to talk with this woman who had been my nurse, and I had to find an opportunity.

  “You’ll have to meet Katy,” Amelia said. “She has been a friend of mine for many years. Nathanial Amory taught her too, along with Charles and Daphne, who’s a little older. Katy is a children’s librarian in the Charleston public library system. You’ll meet her at the rehearsal tonight. We’ve invited some of the family. But Katy’s in the play as well.”

  “We had to have a black maid in a couple of scenes,” Charles said, “so we got Katy to audition for the part,”

  “It wasn’t easy to persuade her to take the part,” Amelia said. “She didn’t want to do a stereotype role, but the play takes place during the War, and this was a character we needed. At least I’ve given her a real part to play, even if it’s small.”

  “What does she think about her mother still working here at Mountfort Hall?” I asked.

  Mrs. Landry answered quietly. “Orva is her own person. She does what she chooses to do, and she does it very well—with pride. Katy doesn’t always understand. She belongs to a different generation, a different time.”

  Amelia seemed to be fidgeting a little, and when there was a pause she set down her fork and smiled at us all. “I can’t wait any longer, Charles. I have to tell them!”

  Her face had come to life with an expression that I’d sometimes glimpsed in my own mirror when happiness filled me—a look I hadn’t seen too often lately.

  “We’ve decided to move our wedding date, and we need to consult with everyone. We’d like it to be a month from now.” She looked brightly at Charles and he smiled with warm affection.

  “Such a short time,” Honoria said.

  Amelia turned to me, explaining, perhaps sounding a little uncertain. “I don’t want to get married without you here, Molly, and I feel certain we can convince you to stay just that much longer.”

  “It took years for you to set the date and now you’re in a hurry.” Honoria sounded impatient.

  “Everything can be arranged,” Charles said easily. “We’ll hold the wedding out here, as planned. You’ll help us work everything out, Mother?”

  Mrs. Landry looked quietly pleased. “Certainly. It will be difficult, but we can arrange it.”

  I felt trapped and unhappy. This feeling had more to do with my growing uncertainty about Charles than with the awkward position Amelia had put me in. Wasn’t Charles everything I’d have chosen for a fictional hero? Though he was neither Rochester nor Heathcliff, he was certainly no Harry Lime.

  Even as Amelia spoke, I knew he watched me surreptitiously, as though he were trying to solve some impossible riddle, and my uncertainty about him grew. I could only hope that he was right for my sister.

  “I’m touched that you want me here for your wedding, Amelia, but how will your mother feel about this?” I asked.

  “Our mother, honey. I expect she’ll be so relieved to see me married that she won’t mind a bit. She’d like babies around again.”

  My sister sounded calm and accepting when it came to Valerie, but I sensed less equanimity under her words. Perhaps this was what it meant to be an identical twin. What she didn’t say I could feel. But there might be a dangerous difference. I could leave this place and these people if anything went wrong. Amelia was tied here by her love for Charles and her love for Valerie Mountfort.

  “Porter will want to know about this right away,” Honoria said. “Have you told him yet?”

  Charles shook his head. “There hasn’t been time. Amelia and I had breakfast together this morning, and we’ve just made up our minds.” He reached out to cover Amelia’s hand with his own, and she looked at him with so much love—so much vulnerable love—that I felt more anxious for her than happy. Yet a little envious at the same time. I had loved Douglas a great deal, but never like this. What Amelia felt for Charles was something I had never experienced, and the knowledge left me oddly empty.

  By this time our luncheon plates had been cleared. Orva came and went unobtrusively, though I suspected that she missed nothing that was said at this table. Where did her loyalties lie? Somehow I hoped they were with Amelia, who might need someone she could count on.

  The watermelon we had for dessert was sweeter than any I’d ever tasted in the North—vine-ripened and luscious. I enjoyed it more than most of the food we’d been served.

  When we’d finished our coffee, Charles asked Amelia if she would take me back to Charleston. There were some things he needed to do out here for his mother, so he would drive home later.

  We left the table and I saw my chance to ask Mrs. Landry about speaking with Orva Jackson.

  “Since she was our nurse when Amelia and I were babies, I’d like to talk with her. Do you mind waiting a few minutes, Amelia?”

  Amelia readily agreed, as though she sensed the purpose behind my words. When Evaline Landry went off to call Orva, Amelia and I sat down in a small sitting area on the land side of the house.

  “I can understand why you want to talk with Orva,” Amelia said. “But she doesn’t really know anything about that time. She never saw whoever took you, and she’s had enough questioning over the years.”

  “That’s not why I want to see her,” I said. “She can tell me what I was like as a baby. She can even tell me about our father and mother at that time. Things you can’t remember.”

  A longing to know was growing stronger in me. A few things had begun to fall into place, but there was so much more to know, and Orva might be an important link.

  I found myself waiting anxiously for her to come. Mrs. Landry could send her to me, but Orva would talk or not, as she pleased.

  6

  Orva arrived promptly. I watched the black woman approach, her back straight under the stiff uniform, her face without expression. Nevertheless the gold earrings and the half moons that held back her hair indicated that this was a woman with a good deal of pride—the uniform only a disguise.

  “You wanted to see me, ma’am?” she asked as I rose to greet her.

  At once I knew that I didn’t want this to fall into an exchange between mistress and servant.

  “Please sit down, Mrs. Jackson,” I said. “I hope you’ll talk with me a lit
tle.”

  She glanced at Amelia, who smiled and nodded. “Please, Orva. My sister has some questions that won’t be disturbing.”

  When she’d joined me, I spoke to Orva directly. “You must have been shocked to see me at the table, Mrs. Jackson. Someone should have warned you that I was coming.”

  “Mr. Burke told me, Miss Cecelia. But I was surprised anyway when I saw you.”

  Once more I had to explain. “That isn’t the name I grew up with. My name is Molly Hunt.”

  She bowed her head, waiting, and I tried to reassure her. “I don’t mean to ask questions about when I was stolen. It’s just that there’s such an emptiness behind what happened before I came to my adoptive parents. What was I like as a baby? I don’t think I can ask Mrs. Mountfort about this—it might be too painful. You are the one who knew me best, aside from my birth parents.”

  Relief seemed to sweep through her, as though she’d expected something else from me. Her smile was suddenly warm, friendly, and she hurried into a flow of words, the cadences of her speech musical.

  “I remember real well, Miss Molly. You were the one who cried the most. You sure let us know if you didn’t like something. Miss Valerie didn’t have enough milk, so you both had bottles early, and you had a fine appetite. If you’d been nursing, poor Miss Amelia would have got what was left. You weren’t a good baby. Only your mama could quiet you. You wanted her to hold you all the time, and you’d sniff at her as if you loved the way she smelled.”

  Roses, I thought, and looked at Amelia. My sister had turned away, as though it hurt her to hear this. “I’ll leave you to talk together,” she said, rising. “There’s something I want to see Evaline about before we leave.”

  “She’s upset,” I said regretfully as Amelia walked away. “Why should what you were saying bother her?”

  For a moment Orva hesitated, then seemed to throw natural caution aside. “You are the strong one—you always were, Miss Molly. I can feel it right now. Could be your sister’s a little afraid about what you might do.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to do anything. Certainly not anything that might alarm Amelia.”

  “You’re still wondering how long you better stay, aren’t you, Miss Molly?”

  “I don’t like some of the undercurrents I’ve been feeling. But I’d like to stay a little longer so I can get to know Amelia better. And, of course, now she’s moved her wedding up because of me.”

  Orva bowed her head without comment and waited for me to go on.

  “I keep telling everyone that my real life is back home in the North,” I said.

  She answered softly, almost under her breath, as though she wanted no one else to hear. “Your real life is here with your sister, Miss Molly. When she was a little baby I might have given her what she needed most. But after what happened to you they sent me out here.”

  “What did she need, Mrs. Jackson?”

  “Call me Orva, please. That little ol’ baby needed a whole lot of loving. That’s what she never got enough of.”

  “I don’t understand—Amelia must always have had a loving family around her.”

  “I suppose that’s the way it would look to an outsider—no offense meant, Miss Molly—but Miss Valerie couldn’t help the way she was, even though it wasn’t fair. She loved you most because you asked for the most. And when you were taken away, she couldn’t settle for anything except to get you back. She messed up her whole life because of the craziness that got ahold of her. When Mr. Simon was alive he understood, and he tried to make it up to Miss Amelia. But when he died she was all alone.”

  At least I had gone to loving adoptive parents. “Now she has Charles Landry. A husband who loves her could make up for everything.”

  “That’s for certain,” Orva said, and then raised her eyes again to look straight into mine. “You and your sister are maybe too much alike in a lot of ways. But it’s the ways you’re different that can be worrisome.”

  “Worrisome?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Molly. Maybe that’s not the right word. My daughter Katy gets after me about words all the time. She don’t want me to talk in the ol’-fashioned way. So sometimes I get things wrong.”

  I didn’t think she had said anything she didn’t mean. “How are we different—my sister and I?” I asked.

  “You still want the most. Miss Valerie used to be like that—before everything went wrong. She can still spit some pretty hot fire when she gets riled. You try for things harder than Miss Amelia. I can feel that, but you don’t go all crazy-like the way Miss Valerie can. Maybe you need to watch out around your mama. Maybe she’s not sure about you.”

  “How can you see all this just from taking care of me for a few months when I was a baby?”

  “Babies know who they are. Some of them do. Your sister needs you a whole lot, Miss Molly. Maybe you owe her.”

  “I didn’t even know I had a sister until Charles Landry recognized me when he saw me in New York. That was a million-in-one chance.”

  “I don’t think so, Miss Molly. I think it was all meant to be.”

  “You sound like Honoria Phelps.”

  Her smile agreed with me. “Miss Honoria has powers. I don’t have anything special. Just a feeling sometimes. And maybe it’s better if I don’t mix into white folks’ affairs.”

  Perhaps she could say this to me because I was an outsider—not one of her own “white folks.”

  I ventured a question. “Are you sure you don’t remember anything special about that time when I was a baby? Anything that would help me to know better what happened?”

  Her eyes were a deep velvet brown, large and widely set. Unexpectedly, they swam with tears. “I blamed myself for what happened more than anybody else ever did! If I’d just locked the downstairs door—but we didn’t lock doors in the old days. So those men walked in and did what they came to do.”

  “Men?”

  “I know there was two because I heard them talking. One of them grabbed me from behind, while the other stayed out of sight. So I never saw what they looked like. They didn’t talk like gentlemen. They sounded—different. From New York, maybe? I only heard a few words before that smelly handkerchief came over my face.”

  “What did you hear?”

  “One man said something about a jackpot, and the other one told him to shut up. There wasn’t no more I could tell the police.”

  She was silent, and I sensed that thoughts were tumbling through her mind—re-creating something that perhaps she hadn’t told the police.

  “There is something else, isn’t there?”

  Her smile had a downward twist. “You’re still like little Cecelia—you stick in there for what you want. But the what-else wouldn’t have done the police any good, so I never talked about it before.”

  “Will you tell me now, Orva?”

  “I reckon I will, though it won’t do you much good neither. While I was out under that ether stuff, I had a dream. A real bad dream. Mr. Nathanial was still alive then, and he was teaching the little kids. Mr. Charles and Miss Daphne, and my Katy too. In the dream he came and talked to me, and he sounded real scared—asking me what he should do. Should he tell, or shouldn’t he? In the dream I saw him down on the dock out here at Mountfort, and he was getting into a boat. I tried to tell him not to, but he couldn’t hear me and he paid me no mind. He just went right ahead and rowed out on the river. After that the dream was all a jumble and I can’t remember what was happening, till a policeman began shaking me. Most times dreams go away when you come awake, but that one never did. And in a little while, when Mr. Nathanial drowned, I knew I’d dreamed true.”

  “How long after that did he die?”

  “Only a few months. That was bad, because maybe I could have stopped what was going to happen. Only I never tried. And there’s no use telling you this now—don’t know why I have.�
�

  She rose and started away from me down the hall. I couldn’t let her go, and I went with her, talking to her as we walked.

  “Orva, I suppose you know that Honoria thinks Nathanial has come back to Mountfort, and is speaking through her? Even though only the little cat is supposed to see him.”

  “Not only the cat. I saw him one time. It was a real misty night. It seemed like I just had to go down to the dock. He was getting into a boat, and I called out to him—just the way I did in my dream. Only of course he didn’t hear me then either. He got into that boat and rowed out into the mist and disappeared. It scared me real bad, and I ran back to the house.”

  “Honoria thinks someone damaged the boat so that it sank.” Orva nodded. “But why?”

  “Maybe he knew something bad about the kidnapping, Miss Molly. He was here in this house where he could pick up a lot of what was going on. Maybe he was listening when he shouldna been. Miss Honoria used to work here as a docent, and Miss Valerie loved it out here. She lived here when she was a young girl. Of course, Mr. Porter and your father were out at the Hall all the time too.”

  “But what could any of them have known that Nathanial might have overheard? Wasn’t it thought that some ring was operating that stole babies?”

  Orva began edging away from me. “Don’t pay me no mind, Miss Molly. Sometimes I talk as crazy as your mama.”

  “Is my mother crazy?”

  She shook her head vehemently. “That’s just a way of talking. Your mama is sane as anybody.”

  I tried another road. “How much do you know about the circumstances of my father’s death?”

  That seemed to alarm her. “I don’t know anything about that. Mr. Simon was a real good man. He loved Miss Amelia and you more than anything—except maybe your mama.”

  “Could he have known something—that is—”

  “I told you—I don’t know anything about that. He didn’t die until ten years after all the bad trouble.” Her hands were visibly shaking and I tried to reassure her. “Thank you for talking with me, Orva. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m looking forward to meeting your daughter tonight at the rehearsal. I understand she’s in Amelia’s play.”