Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“Bribery. Good thinking. Sorry, Mitch.”

“No problem. This was written to Mary Havers’s cousin, Lucille.”

Leaning back on the library table, Mitch adjusted his glasses, and read.

“ ‘I should not be writing of this, but I am so troubled in my heart and in my mind. I wrote to you last summer of the birth of my employers’ baby boy. He is a beautiful child, Master Reginald, with such a sweet nature. The nurse Mister Harper hired is very competent and seems both gentle with him and quite attached. To my knowledge, the mistress has never entered the nursery. The nurse reports to Mister Harper, and only Mister Harper. Belowstairs Alice, the nurse, tends to chatter, as girls often do. More than once I have heard her comment that the mistress never sees the child, has never held him, has never asked of his welfare.’ ”

“Cold bitch,” Roz said quietly. “I’m glad she’s not a blood ancestor. I’d rather have crazy than cruel.” Then she lifted a hand. “Sorry, Mitchell. I shouldn’t interrupt.”

“It’s okay. I’ve already read this through a couple times, and tend to agree with you. Mary Havers continues,” he said.

“ ‘It is not my place to criticize, of course. However, it would seem unnatural that a mother show no interest in her child, particularly the son who was so desired in this house. It cannot be said that the mistress is a warm woman, or naturally maternal, yet with her girls she is somewhat involved in their daily activities. I cannot count the number of nurses and governesses who have come and gone over the last few years. Mrs. Harper is very particular. Yet, she has never once given Alice instructions on what she expects regarding Master Reginald.

“ ‘I tell you this, Lucy, because while we both know that often those abovestairs take little interest in the details of the household, unless there is an inconvenience, I suspect there is something troubling in this matter, and I must tell someone my thoughts, my fears.’ ”

“She knew something wasn’t right,” Hayley interrupted. “Sorry,” she added with a glance around the room. “But you can hear it, even in what she doesn’t say.”

“She’s fond of the baby, too.” Stella turned her wineglass around and around in her hands. “Concerned for him. You can hear that, too. Go on, Mitch.”

“She writes, ‘While I told you of the baby’s birth, I did not mention in previous correspondence that there was no sign in the months before that Mrs. Harper was expecting. Her activities, her appearance remained as ever. We who serve are privy to the intimate details of a household and those who live in it. It is unavoidable. There was no preparation for this child. No talk of nursemaids, of layettes, there was no lying-in for Mrs. Harper, no visits from the doctor. The baby was simply here one morning, as if, indeed, the stork had delivered him. While there was some talk belowstairs, I did not allow it to continue, at least in my presence. It is not our place to question such matters.

“ ‘Yet, Lucille, she has been so separate from this child it breaks the heart. So, yes, I have wondered. There can be little doubt who fathered the boy as he is the image of Mister Harper. His maternity, however, was another matter, at least in my mind.’ ”

“So they knew.” Harper turned to his mother. “She knew, this Havers, and the household knew. And nothin

g was done.”

“What could they do?” Hayley asked, and her voice was thick with emotion. “They were servants, employees. Even if they’d made noise about it, who would listen? They’d have been fired and kicked out, and nothing would have changed here.”

“You’re right.” Mitch sipped from his glass of mineral water. “Nothing would have changed. Nothing did. She wrote more.”

He set down his glass, turned the next page. “ ‘Earlier today a woman came to Harper House. So pale, so thin was she, and in her eyes, Lucy, was something not only desperate but not quite sane. Danby—’ That was the butler at the time,” Mitch explained. “ ‘Danby mistook her for someone looking for employment, but she pushed into the house by the front door, something wild in her. She claimed to have come for the baby, for her baby. For her son she called James. She said she heard him crying for her. Even if the child had cried, no one could hear in the entrance hall as he was tucked up in the nursery. I could not turn her away, could not wrest her away as she ran wildly up the stairs, calling for her son. I do not know what I might have done, but the mistress appeared and bade me show the woman up to her sitting room. This poor creature trembled as I led her in. The mistress would allow me to bring no refreshment. I should not have done what I did next, what I have never done in all my years of employment. I listened at the door.’ ”

“So she did come here.” There was pity in Stella’s voice as she laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “She did come for her baby. Poor Amelia.”

“ ‘I heard the cruel things the mistress said to this unfortunate woman,’ ” Mitch continued. “ ‘I heard the cold things she said about the child. Wishing him dead, Lucy, God’s pity, wishing him and this desperate woman dead even as she, who called herself Amelia Connor, asked to have the child returned to her. She was refused. She was threatened. She was dismissed. I know now that the master got this child, this son he craved, with this poor woman, his lightskirt, and took the baby from her to foist it on his wife, to raise the boy here as his heir. I understand that the doctor and the midwife who attended this woman were ordered to tell her the child, a girl child, was stillborn.

“ ‘I have known Mister Harper to be coldly determined in his business, in his private affairs. I have not seen affection between him and his wife, or from him for his daughters. Yet I would not have deemed him capable of such a monstrous act. I would not have believed his wife capable of aligning herself with him. Miss Connor, in her ill-fitting gray dress and shattered eyes, was ordered away, was threatened with the police should she ever come back, ever speak of what was spoken of in that room. I did my duty, Lucille, and showed her from the house. I watched her carriage drive away. I have not been easy in my mind since.

“ ‘I feel I should try to help her, but what can I do? Is it not my Christian duty to offer some assistance, or comfort at the very least, to this woman? Yet my duty to my employers, those who provide the roof over my head, the food I eat, the money which keeps me independent, is to remain silent. To remember my place.

“ ‘I will pray that I come to know what is right. I will pray for this young woman who came for the child she birthed, and was turned away.’ ”

Mitch set the pages down. And there was silence.

Tears slid down Hayley’s cheeks. Her head was lowered, as it had been during the last page of Mitch’s recital. Now she lifted it, and with her eyes shining with tears, smiled.

“But I came back.”

seventeen

“HAYLEY.”

“Don’t.” Mitch stepped forward as Harper sprang off the floor. “Wait.”

“I came back,” Hayley repeated, “for what was mine.”

“But you weren’t able to get to the child,” Mitch said.