Who was I? A dirt farmer’s daughter, Todd Shannon had called me sneeringly. With my sunburned skin that made my eyes seem a darker blue than usual, and my black hair drawn into a careless knot
at the back of my neck, I suppose I looked the part. The last time I studied my reflection so carefully, I had seen myself as an Apache squaw.
How had Lucas seen me? I caught back the forbidden thought quickly, angry with myself for my own weakness. Hadn’t I promised myself that I would not look back? Over and done with—I must remember that. Never again would I let blind emotion rule me.
In spite of all my resolutions, it was almost with a sense of foreboding that I unlocked the drawer that held my father’s journals—finding the one I was looking for pushed all the way to the back, where it could too easily be missed.
I forced myself to read from the beginning. No skipping and skimming over certain entries this time.
A man’s whole life lay between the pages of these volumes, carefully numbered and bound in hand-tooled leather. His life—and part of some of the other lives that had touched his. How dared I treat the request he had made of me as lightly as I had done at the start? I had been far too lazy, and too full of the change in my own circumstances; now, for the first time I felt ashamed. He had given me everything he had, and made only a few requests in exchange. Not too much for a father to ask of his daughter, even one as self-centered as I had been. I had taken up a challenge, but for my own reasons. I had been too busy fulfilling my own ambitions and my own needs for his to seem of too much importance.
How strong I had felt myself to be! How contemptuous of what I had thought of as the weakness of others. But now that I had discovered my own weakness and my own failings, I could see my father as a man, instead of a kind of image—a human being who was human enough to acknowledge his own failings and accept the shortcomings of other people. A man capable of loving in the wrong place—of jealousy—yes, even of violence. But a man nevertheless. If only I could have known him!
I opened the book to the first entry, almost unwillingly, and a name leaped out at me.
“Tonight Lucas brought Ramon, a pleasant young man with impeccable Spanish manners. I found him well-bred and likable.” His pen had sputtered ink, and then, in parentheses, my father had scribbled, “Would Rowena think so?” And had added, “I must start learning to be a father all over again. She must not be pushed and reminded of her duty as I was. But how convenient if she should find Ramon as easy to like as I do…” More splutters, and then—“I am afraid, though, that she might find Lucas less easy to read, and therefore more intriguing…”
I turned the page quickly. Afraid, he had written. Of what had he been afraid? Had he begun to have doubts, or was it because he had begun to suspect how things were between Lucas and Elena?
I forced myself to read further, and found pages and pages that were filled with hope and anticipation. Plans for my future and my happiness. Never a mention of his illness, and the pain he suffered constantly.
Braithwaite writes that she is considered one of the fashionable beauties, and that in spite of all the adulation she has received, she remains cold and reserved. He says there are rumors that she has turned down the Prince of Wales himself… Beaconsfield has made her his protégé; it is said he has publicly stated that she is the most intelligent woman it has been his pleasure to meet…
Had the woman my father wrote of so lovingly and proudly really been me? How faint the memory of that part of my life seemed now! My eyes blurred, and I had to blink them back to awareness as I continued to read.
Mr. Braithwaite had, apparently, been tactful. There was no mention in the closely written pages of any rumors concerning my relationship with my stepfather.
There were references to Todd Shannon, and to Mark.
Todd is too busy these days to bother with an old, dying man. Sometimes I think he imagines me dead already. Todd has always stayed so vital, so young. But Mark remains the personable young man I have always liked, very much like his mother, and with her air of breeding. He can even speak, with a rueful kind of amusement, of Corinne’s elopement, and admits that she was too much like a sister to have made a perfect wife. One of those family arrangements—how can I expect Rowena to understand what I have arranged for her? But perhaps, once I have had a chance to talk to her and explain matters, she will not think me too much of a hypocrite… the feud must be ended…
There were many blots and crossed out words. I thought, painfully, that there must have been occasions when my father had not known what he wanted to say. Interspersed with old memories and newly aroused hopes I read of everyday matters—how Jules had been sent to the store for supplies—there had been a letter from Elmer Bragg—a visit by Mark, a game of chess… Involuntarily I felt a quickening of my pulse when I saw Lucas’s name again.
I have tried to talk reason and caution to Lucas, but he does not hear me any longer. I feel that there is something eating at him, but he will not tell me what it is. Sometimes I feel that he would prefer to make a stranger of me, for all that he takes risks to visit me. What does Lucas want? I have offered him enough money with which to make a new life, but he only gives me a frowning, closed look. He says Elena needs him. He hates Todd, and I am afraid that his hate will warp his whole life…
More trivialities, and then:
It is time, perhaps, that I should seek the advice, and the wisdom of my old friend who is the shaman of his tribe, and far wiser than I. I have been too long within these walls, with nothing but my own thoughts and impressions to guide me. How do I know that my daughter will feel the way I do? If she reads this, I beg her to forgive an old, sick man’s doubts… there must be some way that I can ensure that the law of justice is fulfilled. A codicil to my will that Rowena can destroy if she sees fit? I will be able to think more clearly once I have breathed some of the clear mountain air, and have talked to my old friend…
There was a gap, after that, and several torn-out pages. A puzzling void before the last, and most confusing entry of all—his writing almost an indecipherable scrawl, obviously scratched across the page under great stress.
I have not been able to rest since my return from the mountains, where I went to seek, of all things, peace. It is my own fault for prying, for pressing, and now—I have given my word not to speak of what I have learned unless I must—but God, my God, when is must and how shall I recognize such a time? Why have I been blind, when the truth was always there for me to see? Do I have to judge now, when I still feel too strongly? I ask myself whether I have let myself be too much swayed by my emotions and my own desires.
Can I face the truth, even now? Was I deliberately lied to or did I close my mind against accepting what reason tried to tell me?
Oh, God, why do I have to keep imagining her as I first saw her? Must I love her still? Elena—a wild and primitive child, with the body of a woman; with the innocence of the wholly savage—naive and knowing, fierce and gentle—and what beauty! I was stricken and spellbound when I first saw her—am I equally bewitched now? Can I blame her? Or him? If any man knows how easy it is to love her and to be swayed by her, I do…
I do not think Lucas will listen to me, not even now. But I must speak with him, even if it turns him against me. He must see the nature of the unspeakable wrong he is committed to—he must be turned away—
There were more blots, and then, further down:
Oedipus—the tragedy come to life. I should have sensed it, recognized it, before. I am rambling. I must take hold of myself, for my daughter’s sake. She must know the truth, and must be prepared. She must be warned against…
The next few lines he had written were so smudged and indecipherable, as if he had rested his hand on the page before the ink was dry. By straining my eyes, I thought I could make out a few words here and there, but nothing that brought me closer to understanding.
My own name, and then, almost certainly, making my heart beat faster: “Lucas is…”
Is what? What had my father found out that had upset him so? And then, farther down: “Hate corrodes… and in his case, how far he might go unless…” more blots, and then words that stood out clearly at last: