Tomorrow's Dreams (48 page)

“He sounds like a wonderful old character. I would have liked to meet him,” Penelope commented with a smile.

“He would have loved you. He always had an eye for a pretty lady,” Seth replied, rubbing at his temples. His head was pounding so hard, it felt ready to explode.

Penelope paused from bathing the baby to lay her hand on his forehead. “Does your head ache?”

Her palm was cool and soft. It felt wonderful. Closing his eyes, he admitted, “It does hurt. I guess I'm overtired.”

Making one of her soothing little noises, she laid a damp towel on his forehead. “There, love. Now, try and get some sleep.”

Lulled by the gentle sounds of splashing water and Penelope's soft humming, he almost instantly complied.

He didn't wake until early the next morning. Oddly enough, though he'd slept for many hours, he felt even more tired than before. And his head! If anything, it hurt worse than ever. Propping up on his elbow, he squinted at his dimly lit surroundings, bleary-eyed and disorientated. When he finally remembered where he was and why, he reached out to touch his son. The baby was gone.

Irrationally panicked, he bolted up calling Penelope's name, only to sink back down again, clutching his wildly reeling head.

“Over here,” he heard her call softly. Through the spinning blur, he located her. She'd pulled the rocker in front of the fire, and now sat in it with the baby. He sagged with relief.

When the dizziness had subsided to a less debilitating degree, he rose shakily to his feet and slowly moved toward her. “How is he?” Seth asked, his voice hoarse from sleep.

“Much better. He's cooler now.”

Sinking to his knees next to the rocker, he peered down at his son. He lay motionless in Penelope's arms, snugly wrapped in a blue shawl with a plush toy rabbit tucked in beside him. He was the picture of peaceful slumber with his lips slightly parted and his head lolling against Penelope's breast. Gently, so as not to disturb him, Seth touched his cheek. He was cool.

Very cool. An alarm going off in his head, he dropped his fingers to the side for the baby's neck. For several breathless moments, he tried to find a pulse. Nothing. Frantically he ripped the shawl away from his son's chest.

“Seth! You're going to wake him!” Penelope protested.

Barely hearing her in his terror, he pressed his ear to Tommy's chest, praying to hear a faint murmur. As happened all too often, his prayers went unanswered.

“Seth?”

Slowly he lifted his head to meet Penelope's oddly flat gaze with his anguished one. “Our son is dead.”

Chapter 26

Seth watched with helpless anguish as Penelope retucked the shawl around the baby and resumed rocking. In a harsh monotone so different from her usual melodious vocal flow, she started to sing, “‘Hush-a-bye, my precious babe; let lovely dreams—'”

“Sweetheart—” Seth choked out.

“‘—In showers fall. Lullaby, sleep through the night and—'”

“Please, love. Listen to me,” he begged, standing up and grasping her shoulders to stop her frenzied rocking.

Her voice rose a decibel, drowning him out. “‘Be my cheerful morning light. Close your eyes, my bonny one. And—'”

Brittle with grief and guilt, Seth snapped. “He's dead!” he shouted, grabbing her chin and forcing her to look at him in a desperate attempt to be heard. Her eyes were completely blank. “Our son is dead,” he repeated more gently this time.

“‘—Listen to my song of dreams.” She almost shrieked the words. “I wish you everlasting joy. And—'” Her voice broke then.

Slowly Seth sank to his knees in front of her, his hands sliding from her shoulders, down until he grasped her upper arms. “I'm sorry, sweetheart … so sorry,” he whispered, searching her eyes for a dawning of comprehension. There was none. She stared straight through him, unblinking and unseeing. “Just look at me, love. Please,” he implored. “You—”

“It's my fault,” she interrupted with unnatural calm.

“No! You're not to blame. You did everything—”

She cut him off as if he hadn't spoken. “God's punishing me for not wanting my baby.”

“Of course you wanted him! You loved him! Anyone could see that,” Seth denied vehemently.

She looked at him then, not in acknowledgment of who he was, but curiously, rather like the way one views an intriguing stranger. “I didn't want him at first. I resented him terribly while I carried him. I blamed him for ruining my life.” She tipped her head to one side, peering at him in a way that reminded him of a sparrow begging for a crumb. “Sometimes when I read of the success of another singer performing a role that should have been mine, I actually hated him.”

“Don't … please …” Seth entreated, her every word ripping at his heart.

But she continued anyway. “I'd think of all I was missing … the applause, my fawning admirers, the parties held in my honor, and I'd beg God to take him from me, to make me miscarry so I could reclaim my life.” A tear rolled down her cheek then. “I never knew how much I would adore him … what my darling Tommy would mean to me. Making me love him was God's punishment.”

“No.” Seth shook his head, dying a little inside. “Love is a gift, not a punishment.”

She nodded, her expressionless face incongruently streaked with tears. “Love … yes … that is a gift. But to inspire and deepen that love, only to snatch it away … ah, now, that is punishment of the cruelest sort. Punishment that I deserve.” She shifted her gaze abruptly to the baby's lifeless form. “My poor darling. There, there, now,” she crooned, patting his back and making soft, motherly little coos as if he were alive and crying.

It was all too terrible to watch, to hear. Too tragic to bear. Feeling as if he'd go as mad with grief as Penelope if it continued, Seth gently tried to pry the baby from her embrace. She clutched the tiny body tighter, glaring at him as fiercely as a mother wolf protecting her pup from a hunter. “Please, love,” he coaxed softly. “Let me hold my son.”

She shook her head. “No. I just got him to sleep.”

A sob tore at Seth's chest, but he managed to reassure her. “I won't wake him, I promise. I just want to wrap him in something warm so we can take him into town to see the doctor.”

She crushed the baby tighter against her breast as she glanced out the window, her face contorted with such intense sorrow that Seth wondered how someone could be so badly hurt inside and still live. “Snow,” she whispered, hopelessness woven throughout her voice. “I promised I'd have Tommy home before the first snowflake fell.”

She looked back at the motionless bundle in her arms. “I'm sorry, darling,” she murmured. “So sorry for failing you. I—” She crumpled forward then, Tommy clutched protectively to her breast. Seth caught her and swept her into his embrace.

For a long while he sat holding her, their dead son cradled between them, rocking them all back and forth, weeping soundlessly. When his tears at last ran dry, he pressed a kiss to Penelope's head and murmured, “Sweetheart?”

She didn't move a muscle. He drew back a fraction to peer at her face. Her eyes were fixed and staring, as if in a trance. “Penelope?” He shook her slightly. Not so much of a flicker. Over and over again he called her, alternately coaxing and demanding, then tearfully begging for a response. There was none.

Falling silent himself, Seth stared down at Penelope's pale, vacant face, panic bubbling up inside him. Though she still breathed, she was as dead to him as his son.

No!
he protested fiercely, his every fiber rebelling against the loss of the woman he loved. His son was beyond helping, but she wasn't … she couldn't be! He wouldn't let her be! He had to do something to help her.

His mind worked furiously, searching for an answer. Perhaps a doctor? As he stared at her blank face, considering, a single tear escaped the corner of her eye. It was as if she were trapped inside by her grief, her tear a mute plea for release.

How?
he wanted to scream.
How can I help you?
But, of course, he knew it would do him no good, just as he knew that hiring a million doctors would be futile. No medicine in the world could cure what ailed her. What he needed was to find someone who'd loved a child against all odds and lost it. Who had suffered what Penelope was now suffering and could tell him how to help her. He needed—

His mother?
If she'd indeed loved and lost him as she claimed, wouldn't she understand Penelope's paralyzing sorrow? Wasn't it possible that she might hold the key to release her from her inner prison of pain? Would she help him?

He had to ask her … he would ask her … for Penelope's sake. He'd crawl to her on his hands and knees, and kiss her feet if necessary. Anything to regain the woman he loved.

As he rose and carefully set Penelope back in the rocker, his reeling head reminded him, as it had earlier, that he was in no condition to prostrate himself at anyone's feet.

Impossibly dizzy, his head aching almost beyond bearing, Seth pulled on his clothes, then bundled Penelope up in several quilts for the ride into town. She was strangely biddable to his commands, responding automatically like the subject of a hypnotism experiment. Not once, not even when he took the baby from her arms, did she display so much as a hint of awareness.

A half hour later they headed for town. Penelope, as limp as a rag doll, rode braced against his chest, while her hired horse bearing the baby trotted placidly behind on a lead rope.

For Seth, the long, cold trip seemed interminable. Never had he felt so wretched, never had he exerted more willpower than during those hours as he struggled to stay in the saddle. Several times as they slowly wound their way down the snowy foothills, his vision grew so fuzzy, his dizziness so intense that he came dangerously close to fainting. Twice his nausea forced him from his horse to the ground, where he lay retching dryly, excruciating pain radiating from his broken rib with every heave. Just when he was certain he could go no farther, they came to the Platte River bridge. Mercifully the Vanderlyn house was only a mile away.

It was just past noon when they reached their destination. The place looked deserted. Not a thread of lamplight spilled through the drawn curtains; not a wisp of smoke curled from the chimneys. The doors of the carriage house, just visible through the scraggly trees, were thrown open, revealing the emptiness inside. Panic slugged at Seth's gut. Where could Louisa have gone in this weather? The answer that sprang to his overwrought mind merely heightened his anxiety.

Could it be that she was indeed guilty of her crimes against him and had fled from his retribution? That possibility made him long to weep. Yet what other explanation could there be? It was Sunday, so she wasn't likely to be at the brewery, or—

Sunday! If Seth hadn't been so weak with his sudden rush of relief, he'd have probably slapped himself. Of course! How stupid of him! From the Pinkerton reports he knew that Louisa faithfully attended church—one of the Lutheran ones, if he remembered correctly. He pulled out his watch and checked the time. Twelve forty-eight. She could be back anytime now.

As he shoved his watch back into his pocket, a freezing wind blasted from the west. Instinctively he drew Penelope's shivering form against his chest, shielding her from the cold. He had to get her to shelter before she took a chill.

He glanced back at the house speculatively. Perhaps there was a servant inside who would let them wait in the foyer. If not, they would sit on the veranda. At least the building would break the wind and offer a small measure of protection.

With that mission in mind, he dismounted. After waiting a moment for his dizziness to pass, he lifted Penelope from the saddle. He was so weak and shaky that it was only through a sheer force of will that he managed to maneuver her safely to the ground. He was tying the horses to the hitching post when a vehicle came clipping down the street.

It slowed as it approached, and when it pulled to a stop next to him, he recognized it as Lousia's buggy. Squinting painfully against the glare from the falling snow, he looked up from the black and red wheel to the woman within. She looked back; her face was as white as the fur trimming her black paletot-mantle.

For a heartbeat in time, mother and son stared at each other; her gaze uncertain yet yearning; his mutely appealing. Lisbet, who sat beside Lousia clutching a beaver muff, looked back and forth between the parties, visibly baffled.

It was Seth who finally broke the silence. “I need to talk to you. Please …” he begged, his voice hoarse with emotion.

She bit her lip and looked away.

Frantic, he hurled into her line of vision. The violent motion set his head spinning with a savagery that brought him to his knees. As he fell, he lifted his trembling hand to her in desperate entreat. “Please …” he whispered. Then everything went black. For the second time in as many meetings, Seth fainted at his mother's feet.

“‘
Slaap, kindje, slaap
,'” sang a low voice.

Penelope
, Seth thought hazily, struggling to open his eyes. But his heavy lids refused to budge.

“‘
Daar buiten loopt een schaap
,'” the singing continued, this time accompanied by a faint splash of water.

No, not Penelope. Her voice was higher … clearer … sweeter. Then who?
With concentrated effort, he managed to slit open one lid. Light, brutal and glaring, pierced right through his eye into his throbbing brain. Mouthing a soundless groan, he clamped it shut again.

“‘
Eeen schaap met witte voetjes
.'” A wet cloth moved over his chest in spiraling motions. It felt cool … wonderful. He opened his mouth to say so, but no words issued from his dry throat.

“‘
Drinkt er de melk zo zoetjes
.'” The cloth was drawn away. There was a splash; then it returned, this time gliding down his midsection and over his belly.