Chapter 25 #2
“I’m home.” She found a candle on the bedside table and moved to the hearth to light it. “I hear you’ve been poorly. No wonder, with only Fulton to cook for you.” She forced a lightness into her voice.
Returning to his side, she was shocked by what the candlelight revealed. Papa’s face was thinner, paler. She plumped the pillows behind his head as he tried to sit up, but the effort triggered a violent bout of coughing.
Fulton appeared at her shoulder with a cup of lukewarm tea. They got a few sips down before Papa collapsed against the pillow, his face gray. Fulton wiped his mouth and attempted to whisk the handkerchief out of sight as he left the room, but not before Charlotte spied the telltale red blot.
“Oh, Papa, I’m sorry I left. Now that I’m back, we’ll have you up and about in no time.”
“It’s too late for that.” His words were barely above a whisper. The stark honesty terrified her, as none of his empty threats had ever done.
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She fussed around him, tucking in the blanket, but he stilled her with a hand over hers, his grip surprisingly strong.
“Where is Simon?”
“Oh, don’t worry about him. You just rest. Everything will be better in the morning.” She scarcely knew what she was saying, only that she couldn’t tell him the truth. Not tonight in his current state.
His hand tightened over hers. “Charlotte, you went to fetch him home. I’m old and ill, but I remember that much. I’ll ask you again. Where is your brother?”
There was enough of the old command in his voice that Charlotte didn’t dare refuse to answer. That, and the alarming hint of purple in his cheeks, meant his temper was rising. It would bring on another coughing spell if she wasn’t careful. “He isn’t here.”
“Whyever not?” He stirred restlessly, as though he would rise from his bed. “Should have gone myself. That boy must come home.”
Charlotte sighed. “He’s not coming back. But don’t worry,” she continued in a rush, forestalling his objections. With her free hand, she pulled Simon’s letter from her pocket, brandishing it like a talisman. “He wrote you a letter.”
Papa stilled his restless movement, his eyes fixed on the folded paper. “Read it to me.”
Charlotte broke the seal. The intensity of her father’s expression made her fingers tremble and her stomach clench. How would he react to the news that Simon was relinquishing his birthright?
She cleared her throat and began to read. After the usual greetings, Simon described the tract of land, his cabin, his plans for the farm. Then came a line that made her voice catch.
“I found him. Just as Deacon Cole told me I would. It’s all true, isn’t it? I understand now why I could never be the son you wanted. My only regret is leaving Charlotte, but she’ll be happy at Edenbrook as I never could be.”
The letter dropped from her hand. “Papa, what does this mean? Who did he find? And what does Deacon Cole have to do with it?”
Papa ignored her questions. “He must come back.” He stared ahead, his appalled whisper reaching her ears. “There’s things I need to say to him. Things I should have told him myself. I never meant for him to find out like that.”
Charlotte leaned forward, willing him to continue. “Find out what?” she prompted. But Papa’s attempt at a response only brought on another bout of coughing, more violent than before.
A steam bath and hot compress gave Papa some relief, as did the drops of laudanum. He soon dozed off.
Exhausted, Charlotte collapsed in the chair by his bed. Her attention landed on the paper she’d tossed on the bedside table. Simon’s letter.
She picked it up. There was one other person who would know the truth of the matter.
Fulton sat in the kitchen, nursing a cup of tea and staring into the fire. She pulled out the letter. Once again, no one thought to trust her with the truth. Enough secrets. Her life was falling apart around her. At the very least, she deserved to understand why. “Simon wrote Papa a letter.”
Fulton stilled, his cup halfway to his mouth. “He did?”
“He said he’d found someone. Just as Deacon Cole told him he would.” She paused but Fulton remained stubbornly silent. “Please, Fulton. I need to know the truth.”
Fulton dropped his eyes with a defeated sigh. “’Tain’t my story to tell.” He twisted the cup of tea in his hands as though he couldn’t decide whether to gulp it down or dump it in the fire.
“Who else will tell me?” Charlotte faced him. “It affects my life, too. How can I move forward if I don’t understand the past?”
He straightened his shoulders with a decisive nod. “The master weren’t always fair to your brother.”
Charlotte snorted. “That much I know.” She’d spent her life making peace between the two of them. Or trying to.
“There’s reasons for that.” He gestured to the table where he’d laid out bread and cheese, butter and jam. “Come, lass, you’re tired. No doubt hungry, too.”
Charlotte stifled an impatient huff. She didn’t want to eat. She wanted the truth.
Fulton picked up the teapot. “Have a cup of tea. Wasn’t that your mother’s solution to any problem?”
The memory softened her as little else could. She was hungry and exhausted. A cup of tea was too tempting to resist. Sliding onto the bench, she drummed her fingers on the table while Fulton sliced the bread. Then he asked the blessing, the familiar cadence calming the worst of her impatience.
He took a slice of bread and slathered it with butter before pushing the loaf to Charlotte with a gesture that indicated she should do the same.
Instead, she nibbled a slice of cheese, her mind racing.
What could Fulton have to tell her that merited the heavy lines across his brow and this undue hesitation?
Finally, he swallowed his last bite of bread and pushed the plate away.
“I’m ready now. Ready as I’ll ever be.” He dipped his head, his brows furrowing into a frown.
“Now, I don’t know everything. But I’ve eyes in my head and ears to hear.
I reckon I understand what happened twenty years ago well enough. ”
Twenty years. “But that was before Simon was born.”
“Just listen. Let me get it off my chest.”
Charlotte nodded meekly and Fulton began again.
“It’s no secret your mama didn’t like this country. Some folks never do, but she took the move worse than most.” He gestured to the land outside Edenbrook. “Being here, so far from the city, didn’t help. The master took her to town as often as could be, but . . .”
Charlotte nodded. Even before she’d fallen ill, Mama had spent much of her day in her room, poring over letters from England. As children, they’d tiptoed around her moods, her mournful silence just as terrifying as Papa’s rages.
“Then a friend of hers from England arrived. Grew up together, or so I heard.”
“A friend from England?” Charlotte would have been too young to remember, but it was strange that Mama had never spoken of such a visit. “Who was she?”
“He, not she.” Fulton ignored the rest of her question, too deep into his recollections to pause for explanations. “After that, your mama was a different woman. Convinced your father to buy a plot of land next to her friend’s, way up in the bush.”
“Mama wanted to live in the bush?” The idea was startling. Mama had never done more than a stroll around the rose garden in Charlotte’s memory. She couldn’t imagine her in the bush.
Fulton shook his head. “Don’t know what the master was thinking. But then, he never could deny her anything.”
Charlotte frowned. The Papa she remembered had denied Mama plenty of things. “But they never went to the bush.” Her eyes shot to Fulton. “Did they?”
Fulton grimaced, as though the words he was about to utter tasted bitter in his mouth. “I reckon your papa realized Foster weren’t no friend of his.”
“Foster?” It took Charlotte a moment to realize why the name was so familiar. “Foster. The family Simon met in the bush was named Foster. Was that Mama’s friend?”
Fulton gave a curt nod.
“Friends with Mama.” Charlotte repeated the words, trying to imagine gray-haired, somber Mr. Foster as Mama’s friend and childhood playmate. “Why didn’t he say anything?” They could have talked about Mama. She could’ve asked all the things she hadn’t thought to ask as a child at Mama’s side.
Fulton shrugged. “Things aren’t always what they seem, Miss Charlotte.”
Charlotte shook her head, as though the action would cause the jumble of names and facts to make sense.
Why was Fulton talking in riddles? “I don’t understand.
If Mr. Foster isn’t what he seems, then he wasn’t a friend to Mama and Papa?
” Scenarios flashed through her mind. Perhaps he’d deceived them about the lot in the bush and taken Papa’s money.
But the gentleman she’d met hardly seemed capable of thievery.
“Foster is a good friend of Simon’s, you know.
They help each other, work together. Why, Simon said he’d never have his cabin built if it wasn’t for Mr. Foster’s help. ”
Fulton rubbed his hand across his face. “Lass, Foster isn’t just a friend to young Simon. He’s his father.”