The Great Plains (3 page)

Aloysius tapped at the letter. ‘They say she is blonde-haired, striking in appearance,' his eyes grew misty, ‘and aged in her thirties.'

‘The details are compelling, I admit, but I urge you, my friend, not to get your hopes up,' Clarence replied carefully.

‘It's her. It's Philomena.' Aloysius's voice grew tight with emotion.

‘I know how long you have prayed for this moment, Aloysius, but the probability that this woman is indeed your niece remains slight.'

The single sheet of paper trembled between Aloysius's fingers. ‘They have found my dead brother's daughter.' He looked to the ceiling. ‘God be praised.'

‘If it
is
her,' Clarence cautioned, ‘if it is indeed your niece, as your friend I can only advise you to temper your happiness until you learn the true nature of her state.'

Aloysius frowned. ‘What rubbish are you speaking of, Clarence?'

‘It is over twenty years since her abduction.'

‘And I have never stopped thinking of the child. She is my brother's blood.'

‘She has been raised by savages,' Clarence countered. ‘Please, dear friend, I share your joy if indeed the woman is Philomena, but I also urge you to prepare yourself.'

Aloysius folded the letter, returned it to the envelope and tucked it inside his suit coat. ‘I have been preparing for this moment for twenty-three years, Clarence. My niece was born a Wade and no Indian, Geronimo or not, can ever take that away from her.'

No, Clarence thought, they can't take a name but they can take other things.

October, 1886 – Dallas, Texas

Aloysius examined the miniature of his long dead brother. Joseph's portrait was painted on enlistment and remained the sole rendering of his beloved sibling. Aloysius ensured the keepsake remained safely encased in a slip of velvet in his study desk when not on his person. The second portrait was of his sister-in-law, Ginny. Blonde-haired, beloved Ginny – she was the only woman his dear wife Annie had ever come second to, both in appearance and devotion. The squeak of the desk drawer broke the evening silence as Aloysius returned their portraits to safety.

The house was quiet. It was a stillness Aloysius had never grown used to following the departure of his adult children. Raised in a busy Charlestown household with four older sisters vying for husbands from an early age, a socially adept mother and a formidable businessman for a father, Aloysius and Joseph barely enjoyed a quiet moment until their formal education began. Then, after the books and the learning, they were sent west, where the adventure of a frontier life and the establishment of their varied business interests morphed into marriage and children. Now, these many years later with the children grown and long settled into family lives of their own, only Edmund shared the substantial walls of the Wade family home. Their youngest had returned to the fold following his bride's death and, far from providing a pleasant diversion to the long evenings Aloysius and Annie shared, Edmund remained a melancholy addition. Annie was intent on finding a suitable new wife and had gone about the task with considerable determination, much to Edmund's disinterest. Not that Aloysius cared about the future Mrs Edmund Wade. His thoughts, this past month, were only for Philomena.

Since the receipt of that single, miraculous letter, he'd existed on possibilities, concentrated on a future in which all things were put right. He would restore his brother's daughter to the bosom of the family and, in doing so, he would be gifted with the presence of Ginny's daughter. Every day, Aloysius had thanked providence while counting down the hours until his niece was reunited with his family. Then, this morning's mail had arrived with its distressing contents. It seemed it was not going to be the reunion he'd hoped for.

Picking up the letter, he slipped the scant lines between the pages of a diary. It was the diary that he had taken to writing in following the demise of his brother and family. The burgundy leather book, once heavy with grief, was now the keeper of Aloysius's hopes. It calmed him to re-read the entries, to watch the steady progression of his thoughts from despair to anger to a grudging acceptance of the events that had taken place so many years earlier. It was an acknowledgement of the past tinged with faith, for Aloysius never gave up believing that one day Ginny's girl would come home.

On the open page beneath his hand he started to doodle, a shape taking form. Aloysius cocked his head to one side, his eyebrows joining in a single line. The drawing was of an eagle. He shook his head and turned to the diary.

Lifting a pencil, Aloysius made a new diary entry. He couldn't help it. The reality of his brother's death and Philomena's capture was forever imprinted in his mind and yet even after so many years he still couldn't make sense of it.

‘You will wear the words out with re-writing, my husband.' Annie stood in the study doorway, the silk of her lavender gown shimmering from the combined attentions of the dying fire in the hearth and the flickering lamp on the desk. ‘Is everything all right? You were not yourself at dinner.'

Aloysius rested the lead pencil in the diary, making a pretence of ensuring it did not roll from the blank page. What should he tell her? He'd been so confident, so sure of Philomena's triumphant return that he had ignored the cautionary warnings of Clarence and closed his ears to the well-meaning advice and opinions of his wife. ‘I find myself revisiting the past while awaiting the momentous future before us.'

The slightest of shadows crossed his wife's features. In her mid-forties, the bloom of youth had long since left her. High cheekbones and an aquiline nose lent a regal quality to what was once a pretty heart-shaped face, although the years had pulled at her jawline and waistline, elongating the first and widening the second. Tightly corseted, she sat stiffly in the chair opposite the desk, her silk skirt draping prettily on the floor.

‘When do you expect her arrival?'

‘A matter of weeks.'

‘And you are sure about bringing her straight here?'

‘Don't tell me Clarence has had your ear as well, Annie? I never figured the man for such a worrier,' Aloysius snapped.

‘I am glad for his interest otherwise I would not know the half of what goes on.' Annie leant back in the chair. ‘It is my home as well, Aloysius, and I have our family to consider, not to mention our place in society.'

Aloysius chewed at his bottom lip.

‘The letter that arrived today, it was from the doctor, wasn't it?'

‘Yes.' Aloysius closed the diary and began fidgeting with the pencil.

Annie smoothed the folds of her skirt. She was a patient woman to an observer but for an errant eyebrow that slid upwards when irritated, as if drawn by an invisible thread. The fine brown hairs were indeed arched impressively and currently rested with the condemnatory air of a schoolteacher.

‘The doctor wrote to say that Philomena is distressed at the recent contact that has been made. Why, the poor girl has been prodded and poked at by perfect strangers.'

Annie's eyebrow did not budge. ‘She is a grown woman of thirty years, Aloysius.'

‘Yes, one that is unable to communicate in the English language.' That, at least, he could reveal.

Annie, apparently satisfied with his response, moved to stir the embers in the hearth with a poker. ‘You knew that this would not be easy.' She turned to him. ‘Language will be the least of her problems.'

Aloysius found himself silently repeating snippets of the letter. The doctor believed that the possibility of rehabilitation, of a complete restoration of body and soul, which would enable his niece to rejoin the civilised world verged on the hopeless. He actually insinuated that he and his fellow doctor feared her mind ruined. It was impossible for Aloysius to equate this diagnosis with the young child he remembered and, if nothing else, he felt entitled to doubt the opinions of two men whose learned opinions were gleaned from books. ‘They have told me to prepare myself.'

‘I am not surprised. The girl has lived like a heathen for over two decades; hers will not be an easy re-entry. If indeed such a thing is possible.'

‘Joseph would expect me to try,' Aloysius countered.

‘Of course, and you must do your very best for Philomena. However, whatever you do must be for her sake, not for yourself, and you must give consideration to how her presence may affect our immediate family.'

‘What are you implying?'

‘Don't raise your voice at me, husband, I am simply reminding you that this is not about a debt owed to your dead brother or, for that matter, his wife.'

Their eyes met across the desk. Aloysius would never be certain whether Annie knew of his attachment to Ginny. It was Ginny who pushed for the move to the territory of New Mexico. There was no need for such a permanent relocation, for the Wade family interests in silver mines in the region were in excellent management hands, but Ginny needed to escape. She was loved by two brothers. Aloysius still wondered what would have happened between them if Ginny had remained in Dallas.

‘I have decided that on arrival Philomena will not come here. Instead I will lodge her elsewhere, at least until we have a better understanding as to her needs.'

Annie smiled. ‘I'm glad. I think such an arrangement is best for all concerned, at least initially.'

‘I'm sure you're right, my dear. Come now, let's retire for the evening.' Aloysius followed his wife across the polished timber floor and out into the spacious entrance hallway.

A tall cabinet decorated with carved flowers and fruits on a number of panels formed a centrepiece to the matching hall table and single decorative chair on the opposite wall. The dark night had engulfed the waning moon, leaving the house poorly illuminated. Patches of light from a table lamp and a second fire in the drawing room were complemented by a flickering candle Annie held.

Waiting patiently as his wife extinguished the electric lamp, Aloysius stared at the portraits flanking the walls on either side of where he stood. Two sets of parents, his and Annie's, stared across the void. Friends in life, although their reunions had been few, Aloysius wished they were still alive. The burden of patriarch weighed heavily on his shoulders tonight. Neither of Annie's brothers had survived the war and with Joseph also relegated to the great unknown, there was no-one with whom he felt he could freely confide.

‘You haven't told me everything, have you, Aloysius?'

Annie was by his side again. He cupped her elbow and steered her towards the painted balustrade at the bottom of the stairs. The candle threw a yellow light on the wooden panels that covered the ground floor brick work, revealing an intricate design of geometric motifs.

‘I have talked enough on the subject tonight, Annie, I don't wish to be interrogated.'

Her gentle enquiry thwarted, Aloysius was left to follow the smudge of light from the candle Annie held as she led the way to their room. The wooden banister was cool beneath his palm as he walked up the stairs. He could hear the clock ticking on the landing above as his foot touched a squeaking board, the rhythmic swish of Annie's skirts faded as she walked down the hallway to their room.

At the top of the stairs he paused. The light at the end of the hall disappeared to be replaced by a brighter glow as the bedroom light was turned on. Outside, a gentle wind caused the branches of a tree to brush softly against the timber walls of the second storey.

‘Is that you, Father?' Edmund peered from his bedroom, a thin wedge of electric light haloing his dark hair and tall, lanky frame.

‘Yes, my boy.'

‘I wanted to say thank you for the job at the newspaper.'

Recent reports suggested that Edmund had taken to his new employ with enthusiasm. Aloysius knew he should feel grateful for this one bright spark in what constituted his current firmament but in truth he expected more of his youngest son. What man in his right mind pined over a woman dead these past fourteen months? ‘If a man feels gainfully employed, Edmund, then the rest of his life usually falls into place.'

‘That's what I'm hoping for, sir. And Philomena, is there any more news of my cousin?'

‘She was five when you were born. Had things been different you should have been playmates.' Aloysius cleared his throat. ‘In any event we must not get our hopes up. I am told she can't speak English. Hers has not been an easy life.'

‘So she will need special attention, Father.'

‘Yes. I have engaged Dr Fitzgerald in the first instance. And your cousin won't be coming home immediately. I intend to put her under his care for a period of time until she is more settled.'

‘I'm sorry, I know how long you have hoped for this reunion.'

As father and son, theirs had been a distant relationship, but with the boy's words Aloysius felt understanding without judgement. One of his daughter's old bedrooms had been redecorated for Philomena's arrival. Only a week ago there had been talk of a ball to be given in her honour, such was the enthusiasm of his daughters. Aloysius's leather shoes scuffed the brightly coloured wool runner. In hindsight he was beginning to comprehend not only the extent of his naivety, but also how adept he'd been in not only convincing himself of Philomena's triumphant return to society, but also his children. Only Annie listened, watched and waited.

‘Is there something else, Father?'

‘Your mother does not know.' The length of the hall was quiet. ‘You cannot tell anyone, at least not until I tell her. She will be overwrought at the news.'

Edmund beckoned his father into his bedroom. It was a spacious area with a solid desk, sturdy chair, double wardrobe and the single bed he'd used as a boy. Aloysius liked the furnishings for their simplicity and lack of pretension, which was in direct contrast to some of Annie's favourite pieces, which were florid in the Victorian style. The room carried the hint of tobacco and although it was well past the hour for spirits, he accepted the tumbler of whiskey his son poured, swallowing the contents in a single gulp while the boy drank direct from the flask.