For My Daughters Page 7

  Shaken, she stopped at a roadside diner. Once out of the car, she relaxed and grew excited again. That excitement built when she returned to the road, armed with more detailed directions this time, courtesy of the owner of the diner. The closer she came to Star’s End, the greater her anticipation.

  She loved surprises. She just knew Virginia would be pleased.

  It was ten o’clock when she hit Downlee, and five minutes past that when she realized she had. The town center was a single main street ribbed with parallel storefronts, all lit by nothing more than pale shafts of a low-slung moon. She drove through once, hit a stretch of widely spaced homes, turned around, and drove through again.

  The place looked asleep. She hated to have to wake up a stranger. She hated to have to approach a stranger. But she needed help.

  She was idling in the middle of the road trying to decide what to do, when a cruiser appeared out of nowhere and slowly approached. Relieved, she rolled down her window. The ocean air brushed her cheeks.

  “Evening,” said the cop with a tip of his hat. He had a round face and looked to be a friendly sort. “Having car trouble?”

  “I’m looking for Star’s End,” she said. “I have no idea where to find it.”

  “Why Star’s End?”

  “I’m Leah St. Clair. My mother’s the new owner.”

  He stuck out his head for a closer look. “You’re her daughter?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I didn’t know she had a daughter.”

  “She has three, actually.”

  “How old are you?”

  Leah wasn’t sure her age was relevant, so she simply said, “I’m the youngest. I live in Washington. I’ve never been up this way before. Is the house far?”

  “Not far. The moving van was there today. Stayed awhile. She must have lots of things.” His head was back in the cruiser, but his eyes stayed on her. “So she’s a widow now?”

  “Mother? That’s right. She’s not expecting me until tomorrow. I would have been here long ago if I hadn’t gotten lost. I’d really like to reach Star’s End before she goes to bed. Which way do I go?”

  “Up Hullman Road.”

  “I don’t know where that is.”

  “So you’re the youngest daughter. How old’s the oldest?”

  Telling herself that questions went with the territory when one was dealing with the law, she said, “Just turned forty. Is Hullman Road marked?”

  “Follow me.”

  She trailed the cruiser down the road. After several minutes, its brake lights came on. She drew alongside.

  “That’s Hullman Road,” he said, pointing to the right. “Follow it to the end.” With the touch of a finger to his hat, he swung the cruiser around her and left.

  Hullman Road was dark, the trees on either side too dense to let moonlight pass through. She closed her window and locked the doors. With her high beams leading the way, she touched the gas. The car crept forward.

  The road went this way and that and up and down for what seemed an eternity. Eyes wide, Leah clutched the wheel. She was beginning to fear she had taken another wrong turn, when the trees gave way to an open patch, then a more select cluster of trees and shrubs. It was only when the drive swung broadly around, though, that her headlights found the house.

  She caught her breath in delight. The sprawling Victorian was large and two-tiered, part wood, part stone, with gabled windows, an arched porte cochere, and a turret that anchored a wraparound porch. From within came the warm glow of lamps.

  She parked on the circular drive and stepped from the car into a swirl of cool, moist air. From nearby came the crash of the tide against the rocks, and around and above it, the smell of salt, sea, and something faintly sweet, lovely, and familiar.

  The lure of it drew her forward, over crunching pebbles, under the porte cochere, and up a broad set of stone steps. She tried the front door, but it was locked, so she rang the bell, then waited, hoping that the lights weren’t just a show and that someone was awake. She heard footsteps, though she guessed the sound might as easily have been her heart. Excitement had it pounding. She loved surprises.

  Gwen’s face appeared at the sidelight. Within seconds, the door swung open. “My word, girl, you frightened me. I had no idea who’d be calling at this hour in this place. I know what demons to expect in the city, but this is all new. We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

  Leah couldn’t keep the grin from her face or the excitement from her voice. “Hi, Gwen. Sorry about that, but I hadn’t planned to be so late. I thought I’d surprise Mother. Has she gone to bed?”

  “She isn’t here,” Gwen said, but more gently now.

  Leah’s heart fell. “I thought she was coming with you.”

  “She decided to let me organize things first.” Gwen Nmumbi wasn’t the usual housekeeper. More a submistress of the house, she did all the things Virginia couldn’t or wouldn’t do. She was paid handsomely enough to preclude her ever returning to the secretarial pool from which she’d come, and she liked her work. She cooked, made beds, and paid bills. She hired and supervised more lowly workers as she saw fit, but she was tireless, herself, and strong. She was also sensitive, which explained the apology in her voice. “She’s still in Philadelphia.”

  “Oh.”

  “She may be up tomorrow, though. She said she’d give a call.”

  Leah let out a breath. Then there wouldn’t be a surprise, in spite of the effort she’d made—but if she was discouraged, it was her own fault. She should have known not to count on Ginny.

  “Well then,” she said, “I guess I’ll just have to wait to see her.” She peered inside. “Wow. Everything looks new.”

  Gwen drew her in for a better look. “Everything is, just about. They’ve been working on it for months.”

  “Months? I thought she just bought the place.”

  “She bought it last fall, as soon as it went on the market. She’d had her eye on it for a while.”

  So much for sharing dreams, Leah mused, feeling wounded, but not for long. Her spirits refused to be trampled. There was something about Star’s End that was uplifting.

  Gwen took her arm. “Come. We’ll get your things and I’ll show you to your room, then you can explore the house on your own. These old bones of mine are starting to ache. It’s been a long day.”

  Leah knew she must have spent endless hours unpacking, still, wearing a blouse and pants, with a sweater draped across her shoulders, she looked clean and composed. Gwen was like that. Tall, slim, and ruler-straight even at sixty, she had a natural elegance. The only possible betrayal of the work she’d done that day was the moist gathering of wiry tufts of gray hair on a pale black brow.

  At the trunk of Leah’s rented car, Gwen gaped.

  “I didn’t know what to bring,” Leah explained quickly. “Sweaters take lots of room—and then there are evening clothes—I didn’t want to crush anything—and makeup and contact lens stuff and hair stuff—and books. I have most of last week’s Washington Post list. Must be in the know when I return.”

  Gwen gave her a droll look along with two of the bags. She took the other three herself, one per shoulder and one in her hand. “You may go through the books, but the evening stuff won’t see much use. No one dresses here.”

  “There must be nice restaurants.”

  “No one dresses here.”

  “Ahh,” Leah said with a sigh and turned her attention to the house.

  The front hall was large. The walls, which were newly painted and bare, cried for art, but a stunning oval rug lay on the wide-planked floors and a long marble piece nested beneath the sweep of the stairs.

  Guided by a gleaming mahogany banister, they wound their way up those stairs and down the hall. Gwen opened a door and reached inside, simultaneously turning on a pair of shaded floor lamps and a high Casablanca fan. “Your mother thought you’d like this room.”

  Leah did. It held an oversized four-poster bed, with matching ni
ghtstands and a dresser, and a sitting area with a loveseat, a clothed table, and two chairs. Everything had been done up in lavender and white with dashes of green, different from her bedroom in D.C. yet not so. There was the same sense of coziness here—which struck Leah as odd, since this room was much larger and more open. In D.C. a single small bay window looked out on the courtyard. Here, four huge windows looked out on the ocean. Four. She should have felt exposed and vulnerable, but she didn’t.

  Gwen broke into her thoughts to show her the bathroom. “It connects your room with the next. You’ll find towels and soap, everything you need.”

  “A jacuzzi,” Leah observed.

  “All of them are, don’t you know. Your mamma don’t skimp, when she does things up.”

  “Do tell.”

  But Gwen was done. She was, in the final analysis, ever faithful to Ginny. “My room is at the very end of the hall, just at the top of the back stairs. I’ll be heading there now, unless there’s anything else you want.”

  Leah assured her that there wasn’t and turned back to the wall of windows and, beyond, the ocean. The play of the moon on the water was dazzling, the rhythm of the waves hypnotic. Pushing the sash up to allow for a rush of fresh air, she set her forearms on the sill and listened to the waves and to the fog horn at Houkabee Rocks, droning its presence in long, deep, nasal blasts. She breathed the salt air and enjoyed the moment. In time, smiling, she straightened. The thought of being lulled to sleep by the surf was a tempting one, but for later. She wasn’t at all sleepy now.

  The house had six bedrooms on the second floor and on the first two large parlors, a library in the turret, and—to Leah’s delight—a huge new kitchen that opened onto a family room filled with furniture of the sink-into type. Like her bedroom, this room faced the ocean. She imagined it would be spectacular by day.

  French doors in the kitchen opened onto a wide deck, which she presumed was the tail end of the wraparound porch. The deck, in turn, opened onto the salt-water pool Virginia had written about. As Leah faced the pool, trees were on her left, open land straight ahead, bluff on her right.

  She was enchanted. She walked to the edge of the bluff and stood for a time, lost in the same kind of pervasive sensation, the scent of sea and spring growth, that had caught her up when she’d first stepped from the car. The few thoughts that sought a foothold in her mind were blown away by the same breeze that gave her body form and strength. It was a paradox she didn’t try to understand. The feeling was enough. The pleasure. The comfort.

  In time she returned to the pool, but the thought of continuing on into the house wasn’t as enticing as staying outside. So she sank down on a long, cushioned swing that hung from the wide arm of a singular oak. There was a woodsy smell here, along with the ever-present salty and sweet. The blend was rich.

  Any tension that remained in Leah, either from the wisdom of this trip, its length and stress, or the disappointment of finding Virginia absent, drained away. Her limbs grew light along with her heart. She stretched out on the swing with her head on its cushioned arm, only to straighten again seconds later and pull the pins from her hair. She ran her fingers through the unbound strands, feeling them start to curl and, for once, not caring. By the time she lay back on the swing, her head was cushioned by a riot of waves, nearly as lush as the breeze that propelled the swing ever so gently forward and back, forward and back.

  She closed her eyes and took a deep, deep breath.

  The next thing she knew it was morning. To her astonishment, she was still on the swing, feeling not at all cramped, but more rested than she had in weeks. Nothing at all felt odd; from the minute she opened her eyes she knew where she was. There was pleasure and contentment, even familiarity.

  The air on her face was cooler than it had been the night before, but the rest of her was delightfully warm under a large knit afghan. She didn’t remember it from her mother’s house, though Virginia might well have received it as a gift once upon a time and stashed it away. If so, she had been wise to take it out now. Its patchwork quilt design fit the setting.

  She gathered it to her chin and lingered for a few last, lazy minutes. The afghan smelled of wool and something else new and pleasant. She wondered when Gwen had brought it out.

  Gwen was nowhere in sight, but there was clear evidence that she had been up and about. Leah’s bags were unpacked, her clothes neatly hung in the closet, her books stacked, her toiletries arranged by the pale green marble sink. She showered and put on a sweater and white jeans—which were the most casual pants she had brought and even then seemed wrong—folded the afghan over the back of the loveseat in a statement of ownership, and went downstairs.

  A note anchored by a basket of warm sweet rolls on the granite island in the kitchen said that Gwen had gone grocery shopping. Leah helped herself to one of the rolls, then turned and gasped. Beyond the tall windows of the family room, in beds lying between the edge of the porch and the sea, were a profusion of flowers. She crossed to the windows and stared. There were daylilies and asters, purple iris, white phlox, towering blue lupines. She swung around to the pool side to find sundrops blooming beside baby’s breath—and, unbelievably, poppies—bright scarlet poppies.

  She went out the French doors and along the porch toward the front of the house. Creating a foil for the circular drive, looking casual and perfectly at home, were lavish bursts of pink and white, blue and yellow. She saw peonies and bleeding hearts. She saw the first of the hollyhocks and the last of the columbines. She saw newly planted dahlias, their crimson blooms little yet but a promise.

  She continued around to the very front of the house, where alyssum billowed low and white against green-gray shrubs, but her nose led her on, off the porch now and across the lawn, to the sea again and the point where the bluff began. There she found beach roses. They were in full bloom and fragrant beneath the sun in ways that had only been suggested the night before. Their scent was as familiar to Leah as her own.

  She had plucked one from its vine and was breathing it in, looking dazedly toward the sea, when a movement far down the bluff caused her pulse to trip. A man was there. He was working among the irises, deadheading blooms that had gone by. She guessed him to be the gardener, though the distance precluded her guessing much more. She could see that he was tall and, given the ease with which he worked, bending and reaching, bending and reaching, limber. She could see that he wore jeans and a dark shirt, and had dark hair. But that was all.

  She thought to approach him and compliment him on his work, but something held her back. So she lingered with the roses, then wandered back toward the front of the house. She was crossing the drive when she came upon him again, and again her pulse tripped. He was closer this time, unscrewing a hose from a spigot at the corner of the house.

  The shirt was denim and rolled to his elbows, baring forearms the color of a new tan, more brick than brown. His hair was windblown, his jaw shadowed, his hands large and dirty. She watched the way his shoulders moved as he gathered up coils of hose, the way ropy muscles in his forearms rhythmically bunched and eased.

  He wasn’t handsome in the classic sense, was too large and blunt for that, but therein lay an odd beauty. He was as physical a man as she had ever seen. She couldn’t take her eyes from him.

  She guessed him to be nearing forty. In theory, they could be friends. If she could only speak. But her mouth had gone dry.

  She didn’t know whether to pass him or go back, and was trying to decide which, when he raised his eyes from his work.

  She smiled a dumb smile and raised an open hand in greeting. For a minute, seeming startled, he just stared. Then he blinked, nodded solemnly, opened his hand in a brief returning wave. He looked at her a minute longer, then took the hose and set off across the grass.

  She went the other way, fairly flying around the house and reentering the kitchen. Her heart was beating up a storm. She grinned when she saw Gwen, who must have returned while she was out on the bluff. “The flowers
are spectacular,” she gasped. “I’m amazed that they grow here.”

  “Oh, they’re coaxed,” Gwen said as she filled the refrigerator. “The gardener is quite good. Have you seen him?”

  “I just did. Does he work here full-time?”

  “Believe it, with fifty acres of land.”

  “Much of that is forest.”

  “Much isn’t. You saw the flowers, girl. You know what kind of care they demand.”

  Leah certainly did. Flowers were her thing. “Did he come with the house, or did Mother hire him new?”

  “He came with it. From what I hear, if it hadn’t been for his keeping an eye on things when the last owner died, the house would have fallen to ruin. He lives right here on the grounds, in a cottage at the edge of the woods. There’s a small greenhouse beside it.” She busied herself washing blueberries. “Mmmm-mmmm, but he’s a well-made man. I tell you, honey, if he were fifteen years older and of color, those sweet rolls over there would’a gone from my oven to his cottage first thing.”

  Leah laughed.

  “Don’t laugh,” said Gwen.

  “Sorry. Has Mother called?”

  “Not yet.”

  “She must think I’m on my way. Maybe I ought to call her and tell her I’m here. She isn’t still at the house, is she?”

  “Lord, no. Not with all the furniture gone. Not with me gone. She’s with Lillian.”

  “Ahh. Saying her goodbyes. I won’t bother her then.”

  “She won’t mind.”

  But Leah wasn’t inviting disappointment. She wasn’t taking the chance that Virginia would find some compelling reason not to come to the phone. “When she calls,” she told Gwen, “tell her that I’m here and that I’m impressed. I’m taking a book out to the pool.”

  That was precisely what she did, but she didn’t read more than the occasional page. Sounds kept distracting her, and sights. She walked along the flower beds by the pool side of the house. She wandered to the bluff and watched the surf. She lay idly on the lounge chair with the book face down on her lap and thought about absolutely nothing at all.