On Wings of Fire

by Frances Patton Statham

  Alpharetta stared at the old man sitting before the fire and tapping his pipe. She had liked him from the first moment he had taken her to see his still, when Dow had stopped for the night on the way to Scotland.

  Her green eyes sparkled. So he had accepted her as a daughter. She smiled and, looking across the room at him, she inquired, “Would you like your tea now, Father?”

  “Whenever it’s ready, ‘Retta,” he replied, relaxing his body to fit the curves of the upholstered rocking chair before the hearth. As Alpharetta walked to the kitchen, he filled his pipe with tobacco, then leaned over to get a light from the flames on the hearth.

  When the sun began to wane, Sir Edward left the dower house to return to the hall. For a while, Alpharetta stood and watched him go. His departure was slower, less brisk than his arrival. If it were not for Belline, she probably would have swallowed her pride and moved into the hall to keep the old man company. Alpharetta shivered and went back to the fire. Now she understood the old saying that English winter ended in July and began again in August.

  Later that evening, as Belline remained upstairs, Alpharetta sat by the hearth in the same rocking chair that Sir Edward had occupied. She worried over the strange letter from Dow, much like the dog, Brewster, going back to sniff the fox’s den, even though the fox had long fled.

  It was almost as if Dow thought she was having Ben Mark’s baby, instead of Belline. That was it. But surely. . .

  Abruptly she stood up, found the letter, and held it to the light. She began to reconstruct that evening on the downs after Belline had called her about Ben Mark’s death. That was when it started. Surely Dow didn’t think Ben Mark had made her pregnant and then married Belline? Had she not made it clear to him that Belline was the pregnant one?

  But Dow had arranged their marriage hurriedly, and then left without consummating it. There could be only one logical explanation for that. He had thought Alpharetta was already pregnant with Ben Mark’s child. And Ben Mark was dead.

  Now it all fell into place, and a furious Alpharetta left the house for a long walk. If she stayed any longer—in the house where Dow had put the rings on her finger before their mock honeymoon—she knew she would explode. For the marriage was still a mockery, no more than the honeymoon at Lochendall.

  She would write him immediately. No, she wouldn’t. Let him discover the truth for himself upon his return, whenever that might be—Christmas or later. It didn’t matter to her.

  Christmas of 1944 came and went, hardly observed at all, for the Germans, mounting a massive offensive in the Ardennes, had broken through a weak link in the defensive line. All leaves were cancelled.

  Back with his division, Marsh Wexford was thrown into yet another battle, in snow that was waist-deep, while Germans, dressed in American uniforms, infiltrated the line and added to the frustrations of the battle.

  Patton, fighting in the south, received the urgent telephone call from Bradley. “Georgie, how soon can you get to Bastogne with your tanks?”

  “I’ll be there in forty-eight hours, Brad.”

  Bradley, the commander of the 12thh Army Group, knew that was an impossibility. No one could turn tanks around and get that far in heavy winter snow in that short a period. The men would have to wait for relief at least ninety-eight hours; for Patton was a soldier, not a magician.

  But true to his word, Patton wheeled an entire army around and drove his tanks unmercifully, and within forty-eight hours the U. S. Third Army had arrived at Bastogne to give relief to the trapped Americans.

  Toward the end of February, Marsh Wexford and his division were pulled out of the line. They returned to their billets in Sissone, France. For them, the winter had ended.

  Two days later, the travail of Belline, Marsh’s stepsister, began in the dower house at Harrington Hall.

  “Alpharetta, I want you to know . . .” Belline, holding on to Alpharetta’s hand, stopped speaking as another pain took her breath. When she had relaxed, she suddenly said, “If anything happens to me, I want you to take the baby.”

  “Nothing’s going to happen to you, Belline. Think of something else. Think of how beautiful your baby’s going to be.”

  “Yes. He’ll look just like Ben Mark.”

  “Or she might look like you or me.”

  “Alpharetta. I’m sorry. . .”

  She cut Belline off. This was no time for regrets or recriminations. “The past is over and done with, Belline.”

  The doctor seated at the bedside looked at Alpharetta, “I think you’d better go downstairs. Nurse Mortain will take over now.”

  “Don’t leave me, Alpharetta. I need you,” Belline reached out toward her and Alpharetta, caught between the tww, looked at the doctor again.

  He sighed. “All right. But please don’t get in the way.” And so it was that Alpharetta was present in the room when Ben Mark’s son was borne—hair as black as midnight, an angry voice protesting his entrance into a war- torn world.

  Later, Alpharetta held him and stared down into his contented face. The baby was a miracle—just as Marsh’s escape was a miracle. Vaguely, Alpharetta remembered Dow’s letter about his plans to be present for the birth of the baby. But he had not gotten home after all. The war had kept him on the Continent.

  Five days later, as Alpharetta sat by the downstairs fire and soothed the hungry baby while Miss Mortain heated the bottle in the kitchen, a car drove up the lane and stopped at the gate.

  When the knock came, she hurriedly wrapped the blanket around the baby and went to unlock the door.

  Standing in front of her was Dow, his face dark with anger.

  “Dow!”

  “What are you doing in the dower house?” he began, paying no attention to the child in her arms. “Your place is at Harrington Hall, as my wife.”

  “But I—”

  He cut her off. “I presume there’s a nurse for the baby?”

  “Yes. Miss Mortain. She’s—she’s in the kitchen.”

  “Then will you hand the child over to her? I’m taking you to the hall immediately. I’ll come back later for them.”

  “But you don’t understand, Dow—”

  The nurse came from the kitchen with the bottle in her hands. “I’ll take the wee bairn now, my lady,” she said seeing the man in the room.

  “Miss Mortain, this is my husband, Sir Dow. He’s just come home on leave. I. . .I’m going to the hall with him—but I’ll be back later.”

  “Take your time, Lady Pomeroy. And don’t worry about the bairn. He’s in good hands with Nurse Mortain.”

  “Where’s your coat, Alpharetta? It’s freezing outside.”

  “In the closet. The navy-blue one.”

  He got the coat out and helped her on with it. Then before she could object, he had lifted her into his arms to carry her to the car.

  She hadn’t intended for their first meeting to be like this. And now, too late, she realized she should have written him the truth instead of allowing him to go on thinking that she was the one expecting the baby.

  He draped the plaid lap robe around her, cranked the car, and started it in the direction of the hall.

  Alpharetta stared at the man at her side. And her anger matched his because of his behavior, disrupting the calm atmosphere of the dower house and practically kidnapping her from it.

  With his jaw set. Dow drove slowly, carefully, as if she were made of breakable china.

  “Dow, before this goes any further, I need to talk with you.”

  “Not now, Alpharetta. I’m too angry to listen.”

  The fog was beginning to close in, spreading itself over the land, bare of the grain that had been harvested in the fall.

  Dow drove up to the door, got out, and once again lifted Alpharetta into his arms.

  Andrew, the butler, appeared at the door. “Good evening. my lady,” he said, not blinking at the strange sight of Dow carrying his wife into the hall.

  “Good evening, Andrew,” she managed to say as Dow swept
down the hallway to the curved stairs that wound up to the second floor.

  As they reached the landing, Betty, the maid, was coming out of the green room.

  “Everything’s ready, Sir Dow. There’s a roaring fire going.”

  “Thank you, Betty. I’ll turn my wife over to you for the moment.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  The maid walked directly behind them and into the green room, where the flickering flames from the hearth spread a soft glow over the green silk moiré walls, the draperies drawn against the cold. A brief reflection of the two appeared in the old patinaed mirror as Dow passed it by and set Alpharetta gently into the chair.

  “I’ll wait outside,” he said and left the room.

  Alpharetta continued to sit in the chair with her coat wrapped around her as she stared into the flames.

  “I’ll help you to undress, whenever you’re ready, my lady.”

  She looked around at Betty. The maid was standing by the bed and touching the exquisite negligee ensemble draped across it.

  “It has to be from Paris, ma’am.”

  Alpharetta rose from the chair and walked to the bed. The negligee and robe were ivory-colored, with russet fur lining the wide cuffs of the long dolman sleeves and the hem.

  The red-haired woman realized she would have no privacy with Dow, until Betty had done her duty and left.

  Dow waited impatiently in the hall, and when Betty came out of the room, he walked in again.

  Alpharetta stood by the fire in the ivory robe, her green eyes accented by the silk moiré of the walls while the ivory satin of the robe bathed her porcelain skin in its softness.

  Dow gazed at her without saying anything. And then he began in a pained voice, “You’re quite beautiful, Alpharetta. It seems that motherhood agrees with you.”

  “You didn’t have to marry me, Dow,” she said, the anger beginning again.

  “I know that, Alpharetta.” His voice was curiously mild. “But I chose to do so, even under the circumstances.”

  “No, Dow. What I have been trying to tell you is that is wasn’t necessary for you to. . .to save my honor. The baby isn’t mine. Belline is the mother. That’s the reason she and Ben Mark were married—because of the baby.

  “Don’t you see? Our marriage is a fraud. The same as it was at Lochendall.”

  She began to remove the rings from her finger. “As soon as Belline is able to travel, we’ll both leave—with the baby. I’m sure you’ll be able to get an annulment with no problem, since our marriage was never consummated.”

  With no move to take the rings, he stood looking at her, as if he didn’t quite believe what she was saying.

  “You mean, the baby you were holding a few minutes ago isn’t yours?”

  “No, I’ve told you. He belongs to Bellline. Now, if you’ll kindly leave the room, I’ll put on my own clothes and go back to the dower house.”

  Relief at the news was evident in Dow’s face. However hard he’d tried to mask it, the knowledge that the baby was not a girl, but a boy, had disappointed him. For that meant another man’s son would become his heir. Yet for Alpharetta, he had been prepared to accept the boy as his firstborn.

  Fleetingly, Dow thought of the wedding gift Miles and the other two men had brought to Lochendall from the village. He had never told Alpharetta what the box contained—the handmade lace christening gown and bonnet, sewn for the next master of Lochendall—the secondborn son. Now he had just discovered there was no firstborn son for him to claim, either.

  “You can’t leave, Alpharetta.”

  “I not only can, but will. I don’t need your pity, Dow. No marriage can be built on pity.”

  “What about love, Alpharetta?”

  Startled, she looked into his face. His eyes, his jaw had softened from the earlier granite hardness.

  “What about—love?” she repeated warily.

  “I want you as my wife, Alpharetta—as I did at Lochendall. I know you don’t love me, but in time. . .”

  He reached out and took the rings from her. And then he took her hand and placed the rings on her finger again. “You remember the first time I did this? ‘I suppose a husband would give you jewels to match your eyes, Miss Beaumont.’”

  “I remember,” she whispered.

  He took her gently in his arms. “I won’t let you go, you know. And after tonight, there’ll be no grounds for annulment.”

  He began to tease her with his kisses, slowly, tantalizingly.

  “Dow?”

  “Hush, darling.”

  The old mirror reflected the two wrapped in each other’s arms.

  Once again Dow lifted her and carried her to the bed of his ancestors. A glow encompassed the room as love blossomed with an eternal flame that spread on wings of fire to ignite one man and one woman in its ecstasy.

  Chapter 46

  By the first week of March, the U.S. First Army entered Köln and the troops of the U.S. 9th Division secured a bridgehead at Remagen. During that time, Montgomery was poised for his offensive in the north.

  Once again the field marshal was allotted all the supplies and men he had demanded, to the detriment of the American armies in the south.

  The lack of gasoline in the Third Army became so grave that each time Patton was summoned to a meeting at Allied headquarters, he drifted in on an empty tank and had his driver tap the headquarter’s tank for enough fuel to return the general back to his own army.

  On the other side of the Rhine, the Germans watched Montgomery’s preparations, the giant stockpiles being amassed. They built up their defenses, preparing for the set piece, Montgomery’s trademark in battle.

  On Marsh 22, one day before the British Second Army began crossing at Rees, troops of the U.S. Third Army, with little gasoline or ammunition, slipped across the Rhine at Oppenheim, the same spot chosen by Napoleon more than a century earlier.

  Sicily was being relived. Again Patton had stolen Montgomery’s thunder, as he had done at Messina.

  Now, the four Allied armies—British, Canadian, American, Soviet—began to converge toward the heart of Germany from three directions. And by the end of March, the last V-2 rocket hit England.

  In Berlin, Emil von Freiker sat in the back of his Horch and looked around him as his driver took him toward the Reichstag.

  He knew the end was near. The Third Reich was now an empty shell waiting to be crushed under the invader’s boot. For the sake of the people left—the civilians, the women—he prayed it would not be the Red Army that reached Berlin first.

  On this April morning, Emil had a sudden desire to see his boyhood home one last time. He tapped on the glass to get his driver’s attention. No one would miss him at the Reichstag. The day would be far better spent in living out old memories.

  They drove into the countryside, where the land still appeared whole despite the leveling of cities throughout the Reich. In the shelter of trees swelling with the promise of spring, Emil got out of the car to stare at the house in the distance.

  “Wait here, Schmidt. I won’t be long.”

  He had no wish for witnesses, even his driver, for it was a journey into the past, where only he could go—alone. But as he pushed open the door, voices greeted him. A woman began to cry, as a man laughed harshly. Heinrich? Was it his son Henrich?

  For a moment, he stood and listened. “Please, Heinrich. I beg you. Kill me, as you did my mother.”

  “In good time, Gretchen. I have not finished with you yet. You have burrowed yourself into my soul, and I cannot get enough of you. I knew you would be like this, the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  “I want to die, Heinrich. I can’t stand the sight of you. I can’t bear for you to touch me again.”

  “Beg all you want. Your repulsion only increases my desire.”

  “Heinrich!”

  The man whirled at the sound of his name. “What are you doing here, Vater?”

  “Release the girl at once.”

  Heinrich, off balan
ce at the intrusion of his father, grew composed again. “Nein, Vater. She is my mistress. You recognize her? The great Frau Emma’s daughter? Gretchen von Erhard?”

  “What has happened to you, Heinrich—to turn on your own people?”

  “They are enemies of the state and the Führer.”

  “I cannot allow you to mistreat her.”

  “There is little you can do, old man,” Heinrich said in a disparaging tone. “And if you do not leave me alone, I shall arrest even you. Oh, I know what you have been up to. You arranged the escape of the paratrooper from Dräger’s stalag. Your—”

  “I’m warning you, Heinrich. Release her.”

  At first he didn’t see the pistol in his father’s hands. And when he did, he became afraid, for he had taken off his own gun belt.

  “Gretchen, you are free to go,” Emil said, still looking into his son’s face.

  “Horst, come here,” Heinrich shouted.

  Gretchen pulled away from Heinrich and ran from the room.

  Emil called after her, “Don’t go back to Berlin. Head south—toward Patton’s army.”

  Emil and Heinrich stood facing each other, taking the measure of each other. Father and son.

  “So the paratrooper got away?” Emil inquired.

  “Yes. He was lucky.”

  Emil smiled. He had no hesitation now in pulling the trigger.

  As Gretchen ran from the house, she heard the sound of a gunshot.

  For a moment, Heinrich looked at his father. And then he collapsed on the floor.

  Schmidt, hearing the shot, drew his pistol and raced into the house as Horst ran up the stairs from the wine cellar. Both heard a second shot, and by the time they reached the room, Emil too lay on the floor.

  “He killed his own son.” Horst shook his head in disbelief as he leaned over Heinrich’s body.

  Schmidt, staring down at the dead body of his general, replied, “It was necessary. Herr General was an honorable man.”

  On April 30, Hitler killed himself in his bunker and on May 7, 1945, Germany made a formal surrender at Rheims.