The Darcy & Flora Boxed Set

by Blanche Day Manos

I switched off the porch light and followed Mom to the kitchen. The room seemed suddenly chill. What had we gotten ourselves into? And why was Burke trying to warn us?

  Chapter 8

  Mom placed the eggs in the refrigerator and shook her head. “Burke may be right. We should just put that sheepskin and gun in my cedar chest and forget we ever found it. I don’t know what the answer is, but it is incredible to me that my mother ever had anything to do with this Cauldfell fellow. Why, that’s just ridiculous. I can’t bring myself to believe it, in spite of the proof.”

  I rinsed our coffee cups and put them in the dishwasher. “Life would be a lot simpler if it had no riddles, Mom. We didn’t exactly ask for this, but don’t you really want to know what it’s all about?”

  She scooped Jethro from the chair in front of the fireplace and sat down. “Oh, I guess I do mostly just to ease my own mind about it. I wouldn’t want any sort of a shadow to be over my parents. They were such good, honest people.” She ran her hand over Jethro’s smooth head. “You know, you think you know someone and then life throws a curve and I wonder whether I ever really knew my mother at all. It’s like she’s two women, the one I loved and that other one that I know nothing about.”

  “But Mom, think of this way: if this brief marriage to Markham Cauldfell really did happen, there was a reason for it. I think we both knew the real Grace Daniels. That episode with Cauldfell didn’t last. The real Grace is the woman we knew and loved, not that young girl who for a short time was Mrs. Markham Cauldfell.”

  My mother looked at me with a quizzical expression; then she smiled. “You know, you’re right, dear daughter. I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  How odd that all the mysteries we had been involved in since my return to Levi almost a year ago had seemingly dropped into our laps. I hadn’t wanted anything but peace and healing after my husband Jake’s death. That’s why I had come back to my hometown. Peace was coming but it was mixed in with a good deal of danger.

  “I’m going to sit here for a while and watch the fire,” Mom said, propping her feet on the footrest. “Maybe I can get my mind on other things. There’s still the school out on Ben’s old farm that is near to being ready for a bunch of boys. I’m tired of old problems. I want to think about helping start a new life for some youngsters who need a helping hand. Why don’t you go on up and take a nice, long soak? Think about something else besides what might have happened almost a hundred years ago.”

  The school for troubled boys was an ongoing project and it provided Mom with something positive to think about. Her old friend Ben Ventris had not only left her his farm but also enough money to make that dream a reality. She was slowly turning it into a home and a school for those who needed a nurturing home environment and a firm hand. Mom would not have wanted to benefit from Ben’s generosity, but she was quite willing that others should.

  A hot bath sounded like a good plan of action to me. My feet had been freezing all day in the basement of the Siloam Springs newspaper morgue, although at the time my search into the past had kept me from paying a lot of attention to my cold toes.

  Fifteen minutes later I was relaxing in a tub full of lavender-scented bubbles while I re-played in my mind the information about the stranger named Markham Cauldfell. Judging from what I had gleaned, not many people in Levi knew of him. The knowledge that he had certainly been a man of less than sterling character disturbed me. Although I found few details, three fights that resulted in Cauldfell’s being charged with assault indicated that he was surely a violent man. Then there was the extremely short stint in the U.S. Army that was in itself highly unusual at a time when America was desperate for strong young men to turn back an enemy that was proving to be far more vicious than our government expected. Instead of raising corn and milking cows as most young men of his generation did after leaving the army, Markham Cauldfell evidently roamed the streets of Siloam, causing trouble. Cauldfell wanted to fight, but not enemy soldiers.

  The things I had learned from the newspaper articles kept me from relaxing. I got out of the tub, dried off and slipped into my pajamas. A computer search might bring to light other facts about the mysterious Cauldfell.

  The possibility that he might have been married to my grandmother, even for an extremely short period of time, was hard to imagine. All reports indicated that she was a woman of strong moral beliefs and sterling behavior and expected everybody else to be the same. Of more importance was the fact that she and Grandpa George had been engaged to be married. Their plans from the first were to wait until he came home from the war and have that anticipated wedding. What had changed her mind? According to the records, she had married Markham Cauldfell, he went missing, and the next month she had married George Daniels.

  What about the attitude of the Jenkins sisters? From their reaction, I would say they had heard something about Markham Cauldfell and their reluctance to even discuss it added weight to the idea that something was wrong. Burke Hopkins too, three of the oldest residents of Levi, had strongly suggested we forget whatever it was Cub found at Granny’s old home place.

  I sat down at my computer, prepared to uncover as much about Cauldfell, this shadowy figure from the past as the infinity of modern technology and the magic of the internet would allow.

  Thirty minutes of searching through old files resulted in a stiff back and a dull headache. I rose from my desk and stared thoughtfully out my bedroom window at the winter scene below me. Snow completely covered the ground and the woods near our house looked like a Christmas card, a quieting picture in the midst of turbulent thoughts.

  My electronic search of history had not produced the answers we had hoped for. Instead, like Mom’s visit with the Jenkins sisters, it had pointed out more discrepancies. Military records revealed that Markham Cauldfell had enlisted in the winter of 1918, from Siloam Springs, Arkansas, and went to St. Louis for basic training. Less than six months later, on August 7 of the same year, he left the military under a dishonorable discharge. I could find no information about the details of that discharge. Three years was the usual tour of duty, not a few months. My first thought was of the worldwide flu epidemic. Even if he got sick and could no longer perform his duties, there would not have been a dishonorable discharge on record.

  Considering what I now knew about Cauldfell’s criminal record, I was forced to conclude that he had committed some crime or otherwise engaged in some violence as he had done in Siloam and the military had kicked him out. I could find no record of a court martial.

  As I stood gazing out of my bedroom window, my mind wandered back to the world that my grandparents, Grace and George Daniels and this mystery person, Markham Cauldfell, must have known in 1918. Woodrow Wilson was President and we were engaged in a great war that was supposed to end all wars. A world-wide flu epidemic ravaged populations where medicines were limited and doctors were few. Had my grandparents experienced that devastating illness? What of Markham Cauldfell? The newspaper article said he disappeared. The newspaper reported that his wife (Granny Grace) said he had gone hunting. Had he been ill when he left the house, become disoriented, died, and was never discovered? The trees even now, many years later, grew thickly at Granny Grace’s old home place. It would be easy to lose one’s way or stumble into a deep ravine and be covered over with leaves. In those days, the land must have been thickly forested. Perhaps mountain lions or other dangerous animals had roamed those woods. I had experienced a small encounter with a mountain lion a short time ago. Had Cauldfell gotten lost and fallen victim to a hungry wild animal?

  Why hadn’t I asked Granny Grace about that long ago time? I was only ten when she died, and certainly knew nothing of this mysterious period in her life, but hadn’t I studied world history? She could have given me first-hand knowledge of life in Levi during World War I.

  Even though she had been gone several decades, I missed our times together, the shared confidences and secrets that neither of us had ever shared with anyone else. I smiled, rem
embering a mealtime at her house, when I had accidentally broken one of her platters, a favorite dish that once belonged to her own mother. More than once, Mom had said she wanted that platter when Granny was finished with it. It was a work of art with tiny roses intertwined with gold leaves painted around the edge. I was horrified, thinking of how precious it was to my grandmother and how Mom would have treasured it.

  I remembered crying and Granny putting her arm around me, drawing me close. “It was just an old dish,” she said. “We must learn not to value “things,” Darcy. They don’t matter. It’s people who are important.”

  “I am thinking of people,” I said. “I’m thinking of Mom and what she’s going to say.”

  Granny had wiped my eyes with her apron and smiled at me. “I don’t think Flora will ever ask about it and that broken platter—well, it’s just between you and me.”

  It seemed that most of my heart-to-heart chats with Granny Grace happened in her kitchen. She taught me how to bake cornbread and biscuits, how to make flaky pie crust and while we baked, we talked. I could have asked her so many questions but I didn’t and now it was too late.

  Granny had always been honest and open. It was no family secret, for example, that Grace and George had adopted my mother when they were well into their 40s. Mom had grown up with this knowledge and seemed happy and content with it. My mother had been the pampered only child of parents who were old enough to be her grandparents. Nobody had ever mentioned my grandmother’s first husband or his disappearance.

  Maybe a good night’s sleep would help. It had been a long day and the same questions kept circling my thoughts like a restless wind. As I turned away from the window, a movement at the corner of the woods behind our house caught my eye. I froze and stared through the falling snow. A person moved within the woods surrounding our pasture. I blinked and he was gone. Rubbing my eyes, I searched those woods again. Had I just imagined that human shape? Surely not. Someone had stood watching, someone interested enough to be out on a very cold night, someone who did not want his presence known.

  Chapter 9

  In spite of getting very little sleep, I was up early the next morning. My purpose was to slip out the door and go to the edge of the woods where I had seen the watcher last night. Maybe I could find a trace of him if the snow hadn’t covered everything. At the moment, the sun was shining and my mother’s yard sparkled with a million icy jewels.

  Mom was already up when I came downstairs. She was sitting at her old wood dining table, the sheepskin open and the gun and my interpretation of the Bible record in front of her.

  “Coffee’s in the pot, Darcy,” she said, hardly looking up.

  The steaming cup of amber liquid warmed me all the way down as I swallowed it. I sat down across from her. “Since the gun and certificate can’t talk, Mom, I don’t see how staring at them is going to help.”

  “I just don’t know what else to do.” She sighed and pushed them away. “What plans have you made for the day?”

  As quickly as I could, I wanted to go look at the spot in the woods where I had seen the lurking figure. I delayed answering her question. Mom had enough to think about without adding that suspicious figure to her worries. It seemed to me that new lines had spread across her forehead overnight.

  I took a second sip of coffee. “It’s a wonderful brisk morning for a walk. I didn’t sleep well and maybe some fresh air will clear my mind.”

  “If it works, let me know and I’ll do the same. I didn’t sleep much either. I just don’t know when I’ve been so puzzled. Cub didn’t do us any favors by sticking his nose in that old well. While you are out walking, I’m going to the attic and hunt for a book I put up there a few years ago. Don’t know how I ever came to have it, but I think it’s called Farm Life for Boys or something like that. It’s an old book. Maybe it’s in a box of Mom’s things. Anyway, I thought it might give me some ideas on what to include in Ben’s school. At least that school is something positive I can get my mind on. I want to go out before long and have a look at how it’s progressing.”

  “Good idea. When you get ready, I’ll go with you.” I finished my coffee and went to the hall closet for my coat. “When you’re ready for breakfast, I’ll do the honors this time. How does bacon and French toast sound to you?”

  “Perfect,” she said.

  As I went out the back door, she headed for the stairs.

  A red bird sang his cheer-up song in the oak by the front gate. A hawk circled over the woods, doubtless hoping that he would see an unwary rabbit outlined against the snow. The out-of-doors was sunny, brisk and still. This beautiful, shining morning was in stark contrast to the dark, jumbled thoughts chasing themselves around in my mind.

  I walked along the edge of the woods with my head down, my eyes searching the ground. Sure enough, at the tree line, the snow looked scuffed and trampled down. One or two actual footprints still showed, the indentations only partially filled with snow. These were the footprints of a man who wore cowboy boots and had rather large feet. That narrowed my suspects down to about 90% of the male population of Ventris County. At least I saw no spent cartridge shells. After all, just standing in our woods was not a high crime. True, he had been trespassing, but our fence was pretty much non-existent in places. Anyway, I had proved to myself that my eyes had not been playing tricks. Somebody had been out in the snow looking at our house last night. How long had he stood there? Was he planning a break-in?

  Was he actually someone who was concerned and trying to watch out for danger? Last night had been cold and hardly a good night for just standing around for the fun of it.

  Although the trampled snow confirmed what I saw from my bedroom window, it didn’t give any answers as to who had been there or why. Surely I could think more clearly after several cups of strong black coffee and the breakfast I had promised to make.

  Mom met me at the kitchen door, her eyes sparkling.

  “Darcy, you’ll never guess what I found when I was rummaging through the attic.”

  I stomped snow from my feet and shrugged out of my coat. “Whatever it was, I’m glad to see you’re happy about it.”

  She held up a notebook with a brown, faded cover. “A journal! It’s my mother’s journal. And Darcy, look at the date on the front—1918! Just think what this might mean. Maybe we’ll find some answers to our puzzle.”

  “Wow! Where did you find it, Mom?”

  “It was in the same box as the book on farm life. When Mom died, I brought all her things over and put them in the attic without looking through many of them. I think this box had been pushed back under her bed and I brought it out here and stored it without even opening it. I clean forgot all about it. It was under a bunch of other boxes and I haven’t read it yet. I guess I’m afraid to.”

  “Well, give it to me! I’m not afraid to read it.”

  I took the journal, but before I could sit down, the doorbell pealed.

  “Pretty early for a visitor,” I muttered as I followed my mother to the front door.

  On the porch stood Eileen Simmons, furry hat pulled over her black hair and her coat collar turned up to her ears. She carried a large manila envelope in her gloved hands.

  “Darcy, Miz Tucker, you don’t know me but I’m Eileen Simmons. I saw you in Grant’s office. We need to talk. May I come in?”

  Mom found her voice before I did. “Of course, Miss Simmons. Come inside.”

  This was the woman who had been so glad to see Grant! Why would she want to talk to us? I closed the door behind her.

  Mom motioned toward the sofa. “Won’t you sit down?”

  Eileen pulled off her cap and unbuttoned her coat. Her hands trembled, whether with nerves or the cold. She handed me the envelope. “I won’t stay long. In fact, you probably won’t want me to. I don’t know how much you know about your grandmother, Darcy, but I’ve found out a few things that I think you should know.”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed. “You found out some things about my mother? I
’m not sure I like the way you said that.”

  “I’m sorry, Miz Tucker. I should have said it different. The thing is, that’s just my way. I blurt out stuff and I don’t mean to hurt any-body’s feelings.”

  Mom sat on the edge of the sofa, turned sideways toward Eileen, her arms folded across her chest. I pulled some pages from the envelope Eileen had given me. She had evidently copied them from a genealogical site. I glanced through and saw the name “Markham Cauldfell,” then “Grace Wolfe” and the fact that they were married in Siloam, Arkansas, and lived in Ventris County, Oklahoma. I looked at the second document. It was a copy of a land description, a familiar land description. I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.

  Eileen watched me; her face pale under the heavy make-up.

  Mom fidgeted on the sofa. “Well, what is it, Darcy? Why are you looking like that?”

  Dimly, I heard a cup clatter in the kitchen. Jethro must have been making the most of our absence to hop up on the table in a search for food.

  My legs suddenly would not hold me up. I plopped down beside Mom. “Are you into tracing your ancestors, Eileen?”

  She nodded and tried to smile. “Yes, yes, I am. We almost share a common ancestor, Darcy. You see, Markham Cauldfell was my great-grandfather.”

  “Markham Cauldfell is no ancestor of mine,” I muttered.

  My mother had taken the papers from my hand and was reading them.

  “This old deed says that Markham Cauldfell owned some land here in Ventris County before he married my mother. And from the looks of this land description, I’d say that is my land that Darcy and I are building our house on.”

  Eileen nodded. “Yes, that’s right. And as his direct descendant and the only living child of my mother, I think that land is rightfully mine.” She twisted her hands together, the knuckles showing white.

  Slowly, Mom stood. “How can you be a descendant of this Cauldfell person?”