A Promise for Tomorrow (43 page)

Nicholas let out a hearty burp, and as she lowered him from her shoulder, Carolina could see that he’d already fallen back to sleep. He was a good baby and she couldn’t imagine how life could have ever been complete without him. Funny how these things work, she thought.

“Just a few short months ago you were only an anticipated gift. A few short years ago, you weren’t even considered. And now that you’re here,” she whispered, “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

Carefully she placed him back in the cradle, and for several moments all she did was watch him sleep. “Oh, Father,” she prayed aloud, “I am so blessed to have my family. Watch over us. This is a grievous time. So many others have lost their children and friends. Please see fit to put an end to this sickness, and watch over my family so that they might not suffer the disease as others have.”

Leaving the sleeping baby, Carolina made her way back downstairs. Her mind was already overworked with thoughts of what she would do that day when she heard the front door open. For a moment, she paused at the bottom of the stairs listening, but when she saw the face of her husband, Carolina smiled broadly and moved to embrace him.

“James, whatever are you doing here at this hour of the day?”

He looked up at her for a moment, and Carolina could see that his eyes were glassy and his face flushed. A sickening dread settled over her in such a way that Carolina nearly felt faint.

“James!” she exclaimed and hurried toward him. “What is it?” she asked, but in her heart she knew the signs. Cholera!

“I’m sick, Carolina,” he whispered. “I thought it would pass, but I just keep getting worse. The pains in my stomach—the diarrhea—”

“It will be all right,” she interjected and worked her arm under his and around his back. “Just lean on me and I’ll get you into bed.” Her heart pounded fiercely and her breath caught in her throat as his head rolled awkwardly to one side. She felt him go limp and slip from her grasp. “James!” she screamed.

Struggling to keep him from falling to the floor, she managed to slide him down against her until he lay in complete unconsciousness upon her new Persian rug. “Miriam!”

The woman didn’t answer, and it was only then that Carolina remembered she was going to the cave to carve a piece of ham for their noon meal. Kneeling beside her husband, Carolina felt a frantic urgency. She needed help to get him to bed, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave his side. Just then voices could be heard, and Carolina instantly recognized that the children and Miriam were coming into the house.

The children! She couldn’t let them get near James.

“Miriam! Keep the children back!” she yelled, and fighting her desperation to stay at James’ side, she got to her feet and ran to the archway. Miriam’s confused expression was mirrored in the faces of Victoria and Brenton. Jordana, however, was too busy being occupied by a bug she had caught outside.

“James has the fever!” she exclaimed. “Oh, Miriam, he’s lying on the floor in the front room. You have to take the children upstairs and keep them away.”

“Dear Lord,” Miriam said in a barely audible voice, “protect us.”

“Papa is sick?” Victoria questioned, her voice filled with terror. “Is he going to . . . to—”

“Victoria, stop. You’ll scare your brother and sister,” Carolina replied in a much harsher tone than she’d intended.

Victoria’s eyes filled with tears, and without another word she turned and ran out the back door. Carolina couldn’t even call after her. She was too distraught with her own fears to deal with those of her daughter. Glancing back to where her husband lay, Carolina couldn’t think of anything but the dreaded realization that James could well die.

“Oh, Miriam,” she whispered, leaning against the archway. “It’s finally come to us.”

40
Victoria’s Heart

Mindless of her mother’s warnings to remain on their own property, Victoria went to the barn and saddled the one remaining riding horse. Her thoughts raced and her heart pounded so hard that she thought it truly might jump right out of her body. Her father lay sick, maybe even dying! The desperation of her mother’s voice had made clear the gravity of the situation, and Victoria could think of only one way to deal with it.

“I’ve got to find Kiernan,” she whispered, as if the horse had questioned their destination. “Kiernan will come and help us and everything will be all right.”

Hiking her skirts, Victoria mounted the horse, throwing her leg over in a most unladylike manner. Sidesaddle might have been her mother’s preference for the teenager, but Victoria knew that sitting astride would allow her the speed and maneuverability she needed.

With little other thought than reaching Kiernan quickly, Victoria dug her heels into the horse’s side and made a mad dash across the yard and onto the dirt thoroughfare. The shortest distance to the tunnel was through the Irish shantytown. She knew this area was thought to be notoriously dangerous and unfitting for a lady, but aware that most of the men would either be at their shift or sleeping in preparation for the next shift, Victoria decided to ignore the warnings.

The street narrowed as it left the reputable part of town and headed into the poverty-ridden Irish settlement. Weathered gray unpainted wood was the standard decor for the slapped-together houses she passed. Most were without glass for their windows. In winter the residents would board up the openings, and the rest of the year they left them open come rain or shine. Victoria knew that most of the houses didn’t have even a fireplace or stove, but rather the women would cook and wash from open caldrons and outdoor fire pits. This activity was performed in all manner of weather, almost as though the women enjoyed the ritual.

Kiernan had told Victoria otherwise, and it was through his education that Victoria knew the heartache and plight of many of these women. Still, traveling past their homes, Victoria found herself pensive, unable to imagine the strength of these families to continue in the face of such adversity. It was bad enough to have left their homeland and families only to find themselves destitute in their new home—the so-called land of opportunity. And now not only poverty but illness was taking its toll on their meager existence.

Every day Kiernan reported to her mother and father and told of the vast numbers of sick. Worse still, he reported the deaths of men and women he’d once called friends. Victoria didn’t like the effect that the epidemic was having on Kiernan. She saw his worried expressions and knew his heavy heart as if it were her own. And in truth, it was her own heart. She felt so completely a part of his dreams and ambitions that it seemed only natural to take on his sorrows and miseries, as well.

They had talked on many occasions of Kiernan’s regrets in leaving his siblings in Ireland. They had talked, too, of the railroad and the labor problems with the Irish. The one thing Victoria found Kiernan rather silent on, however, was Red. Kiernan never wanted to speak about his older brother and the painful, exacting way Red had dismissed Kiernan from his life. Victoria tried to be patient, but it troubled her greatly that Kiernan bore this burden and would not let her share it.

Putting the shanties behind her, Victoria pressed the horse on. Her mind went back to the problem at hand. Why should her father have to be one of those to fall ill? Was it not enough that he gave so unselfishly to everyone around him? Why would God let him get sick, especially now when they all needed him so much? After all, Victoria reasoned, there was the new baby and all the problems with the epidemic. Somehow she had just assumed they would go on being untouched by the disease. How very wrong she was.

Thinking of James made her also reflect back on her real father. Blake St. John was a mystery to Victoria. A mystery that she seldom spent time trying to understand. She couldn’t remember him. Not really. There were fuzzy images in her head, and from some inner reasoning she had decided that they were images of her father. But otherwise there was nothing. Not even a painting to show her his likeness. In Baltimore, back in the house where she’d grown up, Victoria had a large oil painting of her mother and brother. Carolina had given it to her as a keepsake, reminding Victoria that while she counted herself Victoria’s mother in every way that mattered, this was the woman who had given her life, and this was the brother she had never known.

Victoria didn’t know the full story of their deaths. At least, she didn’t believe that Carolina had given her the full story. Whenever her mother had been spoken of, the conversation had always been surrounded with mystery and conspiratorial glances between Carolina and Mrs. Graves. She knew that her brother had drowned in the Baltimore harbor, and that her mother had been the one to let him get too close to the water’s edge. Carolina had said her mother’s heart had been completely broken by this tragedy, and the only thing that had kept her alive was the fact that she was already expecting Victoria when her young son died.

But Victoria knew that shortly after giving birth, her mother had died. Carolina had told her quite honestly that Suzanna St. John had drowned in the same harbor as her young son, and that no one knew for sure what had happened. It was implied that the grief-stricken Suzanna had slipped off the walkway and, being unable to swim, had drowned without anyone realizing that she had fallen into the water. But Victoria felt this was probably a half-truth. As she’d grown up and found it possible to reason out the probable causes of her mother’s death, Victoria had concluded that her mother had purposefully fallen into the water and killed herself. She had approached Carolina on the matter and had been told quite honestly that many people suspected this very thing. But still there were the veiled looks and glances that suggested even this was not the full truth.

And because of this mystery, Victoria found an unfillable void in her soul.

Why hadn’t she been reason enough for her mother to live? Or worse yet, what if she was the cause for her mother’s suicide? Maybe Suzanna had wanted another son, and the birth of a daughter was too despairing to deal with.

And interwoven throughout all of these questions were thoughts of her father. Why had he not kept her mother safe? Why had he allowed her to slip from the house so soon after the birth of her child? Victoria knew from her experience with Carolina’s childbearing that women simply did not get up out of their bed for days, sometimes even weeks, after the birth of their children. Why, then, was her mother allowed to disappear in such a manner?

Such thinking inevitably depressed Victoria. Her real parents had not wanted her, or so it would seem. Even if her mother’s death had been an accident, her father certainly had every opportunity to be a father to her and instead had chosen to distance himself.

Victoria shook her head and wiped at the tears that came unbidden to her eyes. She might not remember her father’s face, but she remembered hearing his voice on many occasions—and his words as though he’d uttered them only yesterday. He often spoke to Carolina about Victoria’s care, and while everyone assumed Victoria to be securely confined to the nursery, Victoria had often taken other courses of action.

More than once she would sneak into a room and hide under a cloth-covered table in order to listen to adult conversations. Other times she would stand outside the door, with her ear pressed against it, in order to hear what was being said. Unfortunately, she always heard more than she should have, and always it left her feeling totally displaced. Her father didn’t want her. He made this abundantly clear. He had no desire to be reminded of the family he’d lost, and he had no desire to spend time with Victoria.

She couldn’t count the number of times she’d heard Carolina pleading with Blake on her behalf. But instead of feeling grateful for Carolina’s efforts, Victoria felt violated and worthless. Blake St. John’s own daughter meant nothing to him. Nothing but trouble and expense. And while Victoria knew Carolina and James loved her as dearly as they loved their other children, it forever haunted her that the one man who should have loved her—didn’t.

“Why was I not enough? What sin did I commit to make him show me such a lack of concern?” Victoria murmured aloud, as she had on many reflective occasions.

Pushing these thoughts aside she reminded herself that James, the only one to ever truly father her, lay desperately ill. If he died, she would lose yet another man in her life, and that was unacceptable to the insecure child.

Nearing the tunnel site, Victoria slowed the horse and glanced up and down the line, desperately seeking Kiernan. She had forgotten about her manner of dress and riding form until one of the laborers drew attention to the fact by whistling and calling down to her.

“Come on up here, lassy, and show me them pretty legs.”

Victoria felt her face go hot and knew that she must be crimson with embarrassment. She pushed her skirts down as much as riding astride would allow her to do and urged the horse forward. She had no idea of where Kiernan would be. Usually he worked with her father, but since James had returned to the house, there was no way of knowing where to begin her search.

“What’s the likes of you doin’ here?” one man questioned as she drew near the mouth of the east tunnel entrance.

“I’m . . . I mean to say . . .” she stammered nervously. “I’m looking for Kiernan O’Connor.”

“Bah! That useless piece of—”

“Please,” Victoria pleaded, “my father, James Baldwin, is ill.”

“So’s half the town,” the man replied and spit into the dust. “I don’t know where yar Mr. O’Connor is.” He turned his back on her and disappeared into the tunnel.

Nearly overwhelming panic began to settle upon Victoria. “Kiernan!” she called out, realizing too late the unwanted attention it would draw to her.

“Now, there’s a pretty filly,” a burly man with a thick red beard called.

“Wouldn’t mind me a try at that one,” another said, wiping sweat from his forehead.

Victoria studied the faces around her, then seeing that Kiernan wasn’t among them, she urged the horse to where the small office shack stood.

“Kiernan! Kiernan, where are you?” she called, suddenly fearing that perhaps he wasn’t on this side of the tunnel at all. Perhaps he was working at the west portal.