Sarah's Baby (24 page)

“Have you no conscience, Mother?” Enid stared up at the woman who had ruled her life.

Ruth gave her silky, shivery laugh. “I'm not a great believer in the afterlife. All we have is the here and now. I've always had to act because you and your brother—”

“Poor Stewart!” Enid heaved a great sigh. Losing her brother was something that should never have happened.

“—were too gutless. I had to run everyone's life. I had to run this historic station. I had to keep it for Kyall.”

Enid shook her head. “If, despite your beliefs, there
is
an afterlife, Mother, you'll go straight to hell. Such power you've possessed and you've used it in all the wrong ways.”

“Do stop, Enid. Your sanctimonious manner tires me. You knew where the door was. Just like Stewart, who got too big for his boots. You and your husband could've left at any time.”

“That's another lie,” Enid erupted. “You've always gone on about how you've run this station. Well, Max and I have been an integral part of it. You've never given us any credit. You've never loved me. Or poor Stewart. The only two people in the world as far as you're concerned are you and Kyall. Yet you did this monstrous thing to him.”

“I did not mean to hurt him.” Ruth's voice was clear and steady.

“You took hurt to its absolute limits.
No one
can do that
and get away with it. And what about that poor demented woman, Molly Fairweather? I suppose you didn't mean to hurt her, either. How did the taipan get into the house? Did you pay Vernon Plummer to plant it there? He'd do anything for a price.”

A ripple of fear brushed Ruth's heart at the mention of Plummer's name. “Enid, I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Kyall will get it out of him,” Enid assured her. “He's probably asking him questions right now.”

Ruth's heart began to race. “What on earth for?”

“Well done, Mother.” Enid clapped her hands. “You're a talented actress, aren't you?” She suddenly frowned. “It was a bit strange, too, Joe dying the very night he stayed in this house.”

“You're actually accusing me of something, Enid?” Ruth's eyes smoldered. “You always were a fool.”

“No, Mother. I've allowed myself to be blinded to the truth. Now my eyes are open. You've sold your soul to the devil, haven't you. You've sinned against us all. I think you planned everything that's happened, every bad thing. You could even go to jail. Think of it! Mrs. Ruth McQueen locked in a cell! And you're the one who goes on and on about family! Dear heaven! What do you have against Sarah, anyway? She's a beautiful, distinguished woman who—”

“In plain words, my dear Enid, I hate her.”

Enid closed her eyes at the profundity of the venom. She rose, speaking quietly but firmly. “I'll ask Mrs. McDermott to help you pack your things. Don't come down to dinner. Or breakfast. They can be sent up. Max is making arrangements for your flight out. He's booking you into a suite at the Wentworth in Sydney. You'll be out of here by noon tomorrow. I couldn't care less whether that suits you or
not.” Enid's voice rose as she pointed one shaking finger at Ruth. “I've been afraid of you all my life, Mother. That's all over. I'm far from perfect, but I've never done anything to be ashamed of. You have.”

 

V
ERNON
P
LUMMER
, shoved against a wall with all Kyall's might, confessed to his part in Nurse Fairweather's death. He confessed, too, to entering the Sinclair house in Sarah's absence, doing things that were meant to scare her. He hadn't wanted to do any of it, he swore. He respected and admired Dr. Sarah. She'd saved his daughter-in-law's life. He wasn't ever going to do anything for Mrs. McQueen again.

“She owned us, you understand. The thing with the snake was meant to scare Nurse Fairweather off, not—”

“Damn you!” Kyall cried. “You son of a bitch!”

“I knew it was wrong all along, but I swear I've never deliberately harmed anyone in my life. Your grandmother threatened me—said my whole family would be out of a job and without a home.”

Kyall let go of the man, watching him collapse to the ground. “I told Dr. Sarah I was her friend. I meant it.”

“You wouldn't have tampered with the brakes on her car if you'd been asked?” Kyall looked down at Plummer with contempt.

“My God, no! Kyall, I used to pray your grandmother would leave me alone.”

“She will from now on,” Kyall told him grimly. “Get up and get back to work. I might want to speak to you further.”

 

H
ER HEART WAS ROARING
in her chest, but Ruth kept on walking.

“Damn you, Sarah Dempsey,” she cried to the wild bush.

She thought she saw a flash through the trees. Long hair, white face, white figure. But it was a trick of the darkness. She was afraid of no ghosts. She was afraid of only one man. Her grandson, Kyall.

“Damn you, Plummer!” she cried again, stumbling but walking on doggedly. The leaves of the ghost gums were moving in the breeze. The moon had gone under a cloud. A night bird screeched so loudly the noise went right through her pounding skull. She'd left the homestead way behind. She was heading for the lagoon. The so-called experts said drowning was euphoric. Not that she'd ever trusted experts. She could think of nothing now but oblivion. Of disappearing without a trace like that other poor creature, Fiona, the first McQueen bride.

The girl's name was Fiona, she'd been told. How very, very odd.

And now she thought the first Fiona might be shadowing her. That white figure seemed to be everywhere she looked.

“Go to hell!” she yelled, then started to laugh until her body shook uncontrollably. It was the mist off the swamp. That was all….

The moon sailed out from beneath the clouds and she saw the glitter of the water. She moved toward it without hesitation. “All right, try and find me,” she dared her family. “My own daughter to talk about jail. Me! There'd be no bars to hold me.”

The long scratches on her arms and legs were bleeding, but she paid them no mind. When she was young she could walk for miles and miles. When she was young she could do anything. She was beautiful with long, jet-black hair. She thought of Ewan, her husband, who couldn't get enough of her body. How disgusted he would be with her. His parting words to her had been, “Love you, Ruthie. See you soon.”

I had to do it, Ewan,
she mumbled. Her poor lifeless Ewan who went and left her.

She'd been so young and a widow. All alone. Full of unsatisfied passions.

A boulder rose up in front of her. She tripped, tried to find her balance, fell cursing. The boulder loomed over her like a headstone. She lay there for a moment to rest before she moved on once more toward the water.

Her heart was burning in her chest. She forced herself up, tasting blood in her mouth. She must have bitten her tongue. Death held no terror for her. There was nothing to live for anymore. Sarah Dempsey and her child had won. The thing she could not accept had happened. She got clear of the boulders, one of them taller than her, walking, stumbling, toward the silent, shining waters that could easily trap a body.

Ruth!

She wheeled and sent a panicked glance into the trees. At something. Someone. She'd heard her name clearly. The thing, the illusion that had been following her, seemed to float out of the top branches.

For the first time in her life, Ruth knew pure terror. All her strength withered away. Excruciating pain rose into her neck.

“Get away from me!” she screamed, flailing her arms. But the white haze kept coming. “Get!” Ruth McQueen cried. “I'm not afraid of you. Or anyone.”

The iron brace around her heart tightened by notches. The white haze seemed to grow brighter and brighter. It dazzled her eyes. A trick of the moonlight? She ground her teeth against the pain that now gripped her back like steely fingers.

How it hurt!

Oddly, she began to have flashes of her childhood in a
place more than a thousand miles away. Her mother and father. Both dead. Then an image of her dead son, Stewart. Ewan, exactly as he was the day she'd met him—the same day she'd decided she was going to be Mrs. Ewan McQueen. She'd wanted Ewan, and all that marriage to Ewan brought with it. An historic station. A magnificent homestead. Wealth and position. A grand pioneering family.

Lastly, Kyall, who would not forgive her for her sins.

“How can I live with that? I will die.”

Ruth gave a final shuddering cry, then slowly folded backward onto the sand, coming to rest in a small inert bundle.

After that, nothing. Nothing save the whisperings of the trees and the scuttling of numerous small nocturnal desert creatures that lay concealed in their burrows during the heat of the day.

The lagoon was a setting as old as the world, richly colorful under the sun, by night a study in shades of black and charcoal, darkest purple and gleaming silver. From time to time the primitive landscape was illuminated by the bright rays of the moon as it sailed from behind the night's cloud cover. It was wondrously white, passing over the body of the woman who stared up at it blindly.

September (four months later)
Wunnamurra Station

S
ARAH FELT
as though her heart could not contain all the happiness that was in her. It blazed through her veins and sharpened all her senses; everyone who looked at her thought she vibrated with inner light. Ruth McQueen's name had been swept clean the moment she was laid to rest, her casket decked with masses of lilies that even in the cooler weather had wilted quickly. The veil of tension and countless other desperate emotions that for so long had hung over the family had lifted. It was like a liberation after long years of war. Now it almost seemed that there was nothing to mark Ruth McQueen's long tenure except her handsome white marble tombstone in the family cemetery near the fork of the creek.

From the moment Sarah and Kyall had laid eyes on their daughter, the decision had been made to bring her back to her family. To her mother, her father and her doting grandparents, Enid and Max. They had flown more than a thousand miles to meet the Hazeltons, not unnaturally expecting massive resistance, heartbreaking scenes, protests, denials and refusals—but by the time they sat down together, all areas of conflict seemed to have dissipated. All that was left was a deeply sad acceptance. It was obvious to Kyall
and Sarah that Stella and her husband had been over and over the dilemma that had invaded their home and their marriage. Although it was never said, Sarah had the intuitive feeling that Stella Hazelton had long suspected Fiona was not her biological child. Both Hazeltons, in fact, had gasped when they laid eyes on Sarah. The resemblance between her and “their” daughter was too remarkable to be explained away.

Afterward both women sat quietly, the tears rolling down their cheeks.

“Fiona will always be part of your family, Stella.” Sarah sought to comfort her, fully conscious of the older woman's pain and mental stress. Both women had achieved an intense two-way connection. “You'll see her often. I'm so sorry, Stella, but you realize that Kyall and I want our daughter.”

“God willed it,” Stella heard herself say, never doubting it for a minute. She knew in her heart that she had no real right to hold on to the child who had so graced their lives.

Afterward, when Fiona came home from school, her eyes brilliant with excitement because she'd been told Sarah and Kyall would be visiting, Sarah and her “mother” sat with her, telling her all the things she didn't know. It had taken quite a while. Fiona had been alarmed and overwhelmed by their disclosures, looking from one to the other as though she couldn't absorb such stunning revelations all at once.

Several times she put out her hand to Stella for support. Stella grasped it and carried it to her mouth. But Fiona listened until finally both women ceased talking.

“So you're my mother?” Fiona turned to Sarah, obviously shaken but unafraid.

“The mother who loves you.” Sarah reached to take Fiona's hand. “The mother who loved you from the minute
she gave birth to you. You would've come home with me, Fiona, except for a terrible stroke of fate.”

“You're so young!” Fiona shyly touched the beautiful face in front of her. “You could be my sister.”

“I'm your mother, I promise.” Sarah tried to smile. “Your father and I don't wish to take you away immediately from the people who've been so good to you, but we want you to come home.”

“And what if I won't go?” Fiona was trying to hold back a torrent of tears.

“We're not going to force you to do anything, Fiona,” Sarah said in a gentle voice. “I can only say we desperately want our daughter with us. Please try to understand that we've missed nearly all your childhood.”

“Mum?” Fiona turned to Stella for help.

“I want what's best for you, sweetheart. Dad and I will always love you.” Already Stella saw her beautiful girl slipping away.

“So all those people were right.” Fiona suddenly remembered things she'd pushed to the back of her mind. “Even Aunty Debby calls me a changeling.”

Stella suddenly caved in, as if she'd taken a knife through the chest. “Oh, God!” she cried. “Of course it worried me. It always worried me.”

Fiona picked up on that right away. “Did you know, Mum?” she asked anxiously.

There was a note of accusation in the girl's tone, causing Sarah to intervene swiftly. “No, Stella didn't know, Fiona. How could she?” Sarah laid a firm but tender hand on the girl's shoulder. “This is a tumultuous time for us all.”

“Incredibly painful!” Stella moaned, while Fiona put an arm around her.

“I'm afraid about all this, Mum. I feel like my head is floating. Yet I know inside—” Fiona touched a hand to her
heart “—that Sarah gave birth to me. I was drawn to her the instant I saw her. I recognized that we were…blood. Not merely look-alikes. I thought Mr. McQueen was marvelous, too. And he's my father! He wants me to live with him.”

“If you want to go,” Sarah said in a soft voice. “We know how much you'll miss being here, but the last thing any of us want is to upset you. You can visit whenever you like. We're not going to lose touch. Stella and Alan can come to us, too. With the grace of God, we can all make this transition smoothly.”

“Am I supposed to make the decision now?” Fiona asked fearfully, her slender throat swelling with emotion.

“No, Fiona.” Sarah longed to take her daughter in her arms. “That wouldn't be fair to you. We wanted you to listen to our story. Think about it. Make your decision then. Your father and I can't pretend we don't want you as soon as possible. You have grandparents, too. Kyall's mother and father. My own parents are dead. I've been very much alone in the world.”

“But you have…Kyall?” Fiona blushed at the use of the Christian name.

“Kyall and I were parted for a long time, Fiona,” Sarah explained. “Thinking you, my own little baby, had died, changed my life drastically. I've mourned you your entire lifetime. My grief almost ended a wonderful friendship. Kyall and I were inseparable all through our childhood.” Sarah couldn't help it. She smoothed back her child's beautiful hair with gentle, loving fingers.

Fiona stared into Sarah's eyes as if searching for her soul. “I'm so sorry,” she whispered, allowing Sarah to continue stroking her hair. “It must have been terrible for you.”

“Seeing you so beautiful, so alive, has changed everything,” Sarah said in a low voice, thinking she'd been given heaven in exchange for purgatory. “I can almost forget the pain, just as a woman forgets the pain of childbirth when her baby arrives. Losing you set me on the path to becoming a doctor.”

“You must be clever!” Fiona managed a tremulous smile. “I'm doing well at school, too. Aren't I, Mum?” she asked Stella, who sat there the very picture of resignation.

“Top of the class,” Stella tried to smile back, her eyes red-rimmed.

“Mum's been the best mum in the world!” Fiona proclaimed loyally. “She's done everything for me.”

“I know, and I couldn't be more grateful,” Sarah said. “Stella and I have opened our hearts to each other. We're going to become good friends.”

“Oh, I'd like that!” said Fiona, then without apparent thought, laid her head on Sarah's breast.

It was almost as if she remembered.

 

T
HAT SAME NIGHT
Sarah and Kyall lay naked in each other's arms, their bodies trembling, breathless in the aftermath of lovemaking so intense, so passionate, so charged, Sarah could recall vividly that night under the brilliantly blossoming desert stars when their daughter had been conceived. They had achieved perfection in their adult sex life, but on this night there was a return to the heart-stopping “unknown,” when two lovers first come together. One half of their lovemaking was given over to the past, with its unearthly quality; the other brought into play the fullness of maturity as neither held back from expressing their desires.

Afterward, they didn't withdraw from each other but kissed tenderly, whispering endearments.

She was his. He was hers. And they'd both finally found their daughter.

 

O
N THIS DAY OF DAYS
, her wedding day, Sarah stood for a moment staring into the tall pier mirror. She was quite alone. Enid, who'd gained a new lease on life, had retired flushed and excited, telling Sarah she looked “as radiant as an angel!”

Sarah wasn't wearing the traditional bridal regalia—her maid of honor had just turned sixteen—but her dress was exquisite. The palest shade of lustrous gold, reaching almost to her ankles, a lovely combination of silk chiffon, ribbons and lace with the shimmer of tiny sequins and crystals for decoration. On her feet she wore beautiful high-heeled gold sandals. On her head, atop her flowing hair, because that was the way Kyall liked it, a simple garland of yellow and cream roses to match the small bouquet she was to hold. Suspended around her throat from a golden chain was Kyall's gift to her, a diamond heart like a sun-burst surmounted by a diamond lover's knot.

I have never, but never, looked like this before,
Sarah thought, studying her image. It was perfectly true. A bride did look wonderful on her wedding day.

Sarah turned as she heard a knock at the door. “Come in, it's open.”

As she hoped, it was Fiona, enchanting in a beautiful cream dress, silk chiffon, like Sarah's, with a perfect floating skirt. Her pre-Raphaelite hair was caught to one side by two lovely fragrant cream roses. Sarah could smell their perfume from across the room.

“Oh, Sarah, how heavenly you look!” she declared rapturously. “I've never seen anyone more beautiful.”

“Well, I have,” Sarah said, thinking she'd never get over the miracle of her daughter. “I'm looking at her right now.”

Fiona smiled but shook her head. “I'm so happy I feel like I'm dreaming. I wish Stella and Alan could've come.”

“They thought it was our day, darling. There'll be plenty of other times.”

“Why do I feel so different?” Fiona asked in some wonderment, coming to stand beside Sarah. “I thought I'd have such a hard time adjusting to my new life, but I feel like I've always known this place. Isn't that strange?” She slipped her arm around Sarah's waist, smiling in pleasure at their reflections. “I even feel guilty about enjoying myself when I'm not with Stella and Alan anymore. I miss them, of course I miss them, I love them so much, but—”

“You've found your true home, Fiona. Your real parents. And the grandparents you've never known. No need to feel guilty. Stella and Alan will always be in your life. That's the way your father and I want it, my rose.”

Fiona beamed at her. “Oh, say that again!” she begged. “It sounds lovely. My rose.”

“You
are
like a flower.” Sarah was savoring all the maternal love in her heart. “I'd already named you before you were born. Rosalind, after my grandmother. She was the warmest, kindest person. My own mother, her daughter, was a lot like that. I wish both of them had lived to see you.”

“They'd recognize me, wouldn't they?” Fiona asked quietly.

“Yes,” Sarah whispered, knowing she couldn't surrender to tears.

“Mother,” Fiona said, trying out the word on her tongue. Compulsively she took Sarah's hand. “I'd better
start calling you that, I guess.” Her great velvety eyes sought Sarah's.

Sarah bent and kissed her. “There's no word that would sound sweeter to my ears.”