Secret Hearts Read online

  “Robin’s awfully quiet,” Maggie said, hoping to deflect Beth’s attention.

  “She’s probably playing with her dolls.” Beth cocked her head to listen, and then set down her coffee cup. “It is awfully quiet. I’d better go check on her.”

  Maggie pushed her chair back from the table. “I can go, Beth. Why don’t you sit down?”

  “No, you stay here,” Beth said with maternal demeanor. Maggie obeyed. Beth was six years older than Maggie and had been like a parent for quite some time. Other than Robin, Beth was all she had left in the way of family. Maggie adored her.

  Jake watched Beth leave the kitchen. He waited until he heard the stairs creak under Beth’s feet, then leaned closer toward Maggie and said quietly, “Why do you suppose she married him?”

  Maggie looked toward the stairs and shook her head. “There’s no use trying to figure that one out. Believe me, I’ve tried. He used to be handsome, but she’s smarter than that.”

  “I guess it’s none of my business, but marriage doesn’t seem to be good to her.”

  A cynical smile bloomed on Maggie’s face. “But that’s not the point, is it? For better or worse. We all assume we’ll get the better, but Beth got the worse.” Jake followed her eyes to Beth’s wedding rings, which lay on the windowsill above the sink.

  “It’s enough to keep you from marrying,” said Jake.

  “Marriage is enough to keep me from marrying,” said Maggie. Her eyes flickered then darkened. She stared at her hands with a distant expression.

  Jake watched her, mired in unresolved thoughts of his own. His feelings were close to the surface, like a buoy too heavily weighted beneath and pushed down from above, yet intractably fighting for air; but Jake’s will was stronger—or maybe his pride.

  “Uncle Jake!” Robin came running down the stairs and into his arms.

  Jake scooped the five-year-old up and onto his lap. “And how’s my best girl?”

  She looked down and grinned coyly.

  “Fine.”

  “Are you now? And how is Miss Dolly?”

  “Special Dolly is fine. We were having tea.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry I haven’t any tea to offer. Do you suppose Special Dolly would care for some coffee?”

  Robin gave the matter a moment of doubtful thought until she caught sight of a plate of oatmeal cookies Beth was just setting down on the counter. “I think she’d rather have a cookie.”

  “All that cookie for this little doll? She’ll grow too fat for her clothes. Unless…do they make corsets for dollies?”

  “Uncle Jake!” She was shocked but not too much to laugh.

  “No, I think you’ll have to eat this,” he said, holding a cookie before her.

  Robin reached, but he pulled it back.

  “Are you sure you’ve got room…in this tummy?”

  Robin burst into a series of giggles as Jake tickled her until she escaped under the table. A moment later, a small hand reached up, snatched the cookie, and vanished under the table.

  Beth opened a cupboard and pulled out some plates as she said, “Jake, you’re staying for dinner. I guess Hank’s going to be late, so it will just be the four of us.”

  Jake hesitated, and then shook his head. “I really ought to start for home.”

  “You live next door,” Beth reminded, as she set the table with an extra place for him.

  Robin popped her head out from under the table. “Please, Uncle Jake?”

  Maggie opened a drawer and gathered some flatware while she listened intently. Jake glanced at Robin, then looked at Beth and laughed.

  “I might as well wait till the rain lets up. Besides, I’d hate to disappoint my best girl,” he said as he winked at Robin and brushed a cookie crumb from her cheek.

  Beth made certain that the only place left at the table for Maggie was a seat beside Jake. As Maggie was sitting, Beth busied herself spooning into Jake’s bowl some Hungarian goulash of beef chunks, tomatoes and whatever vegetables were on hand, seasoned generously with paprika. She asked Jake to bless the meal, then bowed her head and breathed in the peace that filled the room. She used to feel sad to be so relieved by Hank’s absence. But now she felt calm, as though emotions like happiness and sorrow were no longer available to her.

  Afterward, Jake helped Maggie finish the dishes while Beth put Robin to bed. He was rarely found idle when there was work to be done. It was his way. Maggie was used to it.

  He hung up the dishtowel but stood there reluctantly staring. Abruptly, he turned and looked at Maggie as though he had something to say but thought better of it.

  Maggie waited.

  Jake hesitated, then bolted for the door and took hold of the knob. He impulsively turned back. “There’s a concert in the park Saturday.”

  With a puzzled laugh, Maggie said, “There’s a concert in the park every Saturday.”

  “Well, I guess I haven’t been to one in a while, and—”

  “Jake…”

  “Come with me, Maggie.” He held both her shoulders.

  “It sounds nice, but…” She stared at the topstitching on his shirt and its collar. Her eyes darted up to the planes of his cheeks, which were flushed, and his eyes were bright as the firelight across the room.

  Jake’s eyes darted to the wall, then lowered. Then he smiled at Maggie—it was nearly a wink—and gave her shoulders a pat as though it didn’t matter. He turned back toward the door.

  Maggie wanted to say something else—but instead what came out was, “It’s just that—I don’t really care for band concerts.”

  Jake nodded. “I didn’t know that.” He studied the window. A drizzle of moisture slid down the pane.

  “It’s not that—”

  “No—I know,” he replied.

  The power to break a man’s heart was too weighty. Maggie wished she could shed it.

  Beth walked in to find Jake poised by the door. “You’re not leaving us, are you?”

  Jake walked over to her with open arms and gave her a big hug. “Thank you for dinner, Beth.”

  “You know you’re welcome anytime. And thank you for watching out for Maggie. Somebody’s got to.” She hooked her arm in his and patted his hand.

  Maggie fired an impatient look toward Beth.

  Jake paused at the doorway. “Goodnight, Beth.” He gave nod over his shoulder. “Maggie.”

  “Goodnight,” Beth said, and Maggie echoed.

  She would have reached out to touch him, but as close as he was, it was still too far. He closed the screen door behind him and walked down the steps and across the yard.

  Maggie watched him and saw all the coal and the steel that she longed to leave behind. He was part of this town and would remain so for the rest of his life, while Maggie had spent the best part of her life wanting something more. If she let Jake in her heart, he would never leave it, and she would never leave Johnstown. From within and without, her heart and her hometown both tried to ensnare her.

  Through the window, she watched Jake easily hoist himself over the back fence and sprint across the yard to his house. “It’s better this way,” she thought, as she turned her back and leaned against the door.

  The slam of a door disrupted the night stillness. Maggie sat up in bed. Something toppled over. A chair?

  “Damn it!” Hank’s growl grated against the still dark morning air.

  Maggie flopped back down and pulled the covers around her.

  A chair scraped against the wood floor. Something fell to the floor and shattered—not china but a heavier glass or a jar, which Hank damned to hell for eluding his grasp.

  Silence followed for several long moments, until a thud sounded against a downstairs wall. Or was it the landing?

  Maggie lay in bed, alert, without moving. Minutes passed. Stumbling steps of a lumbering body advanced up the stairs. Beth and Hank’s bedroom door opened roughly and closed. And then it was still until stertorous noises all but rattled the wall.

  Maggie rolled over
and wished she could sleep.

  Chapter 2

  Andrew opened the door to Adair Cottage, cottage being a misleading term for the family’s summer residence at Lake Conemaugh. It was, in truth, a lavishly furnished three story Victorian home with several outbuildings. For a moneyed family from Pittsburgh’s East End, however, the accommodations were considerably more rustic than those to which they were accustomed. Still, there may have been no more beautiful place so close to Pittsburgh, and certainly no more prestigious society than the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. A two-hour train ride from Pittsburgh, it rested upon the mountain in a perch overlooking the valley below. The manmade Lake Conemaugh was the perfect setting for the Pittsburgh elite to find summer respite from the trials and tribulations of wealth.

  Andrew walked inside and glanced about. “Allison? It’s not out there.”

  Allison stood at her bedroom window and observed the world from her sanctuary, like a dove in an open cage. Her eyes held a resignation begotten from grief. While some acquire wisdom over time, others obtain it through suffering. She had never sought to be wise at twenty-seven.

  As she turned from the window to answer her brother, the sun cast a halo of fire about her upswept hair, framing her face with a reddish blond aura. In color and nature, she was translucent and fragile as porcelain.

  “Oh. I must have left it on the train.” She walked out to the hallway. Leaning over the banister, she said, “Weren’t you on your way into town?”

  “Yes, and I’m leaving right now.”

  “Please.”

  Andrew stopped and looked up with the impatience of a brother.

  “The train’s gone by now.”

  “I know. But perhaps there’s a bookstore.”

  “With your kind of books? I don’t know.”

  “Well, there’s a library, isn’t there?” She smiled imploringly.

  “Yes.” Andrew wasn't known for his thoughtful acts, but she asked so little of him. He exhaled deeply. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t know. Thomas Hardy, perhaps? There’s a new one, The Woodlanders, although I can’t imagine they’d have it.”

  “They’re all the same, aren’t they? Just a lot of flora and fauna, and unrequited love amid the hayricks.”

  “For you, perhaps,” Allison said toward the swinging door below. She returned to her room, where she had spent so much of her time in recent years. Whether here or at home, she seldom endeavored to go out on her own. Her husband’s death three years earlier had left her disenchanted with life, unwilling to venture back into society.

  She closed the bedroom door behind her. Her carpetbag, still unpacked, lay on the bed where she had left it earlier in the day. With a languid sigh, she began to empty its contents.

  Edmund Kimball, her late husband, was reported to have died of complications from a Smallpox vaccination. Those well acquainted with his rakish habits, however, knew otherwise. He had squandered his fortune, along with his wife’s. When his money and health were all but spent, he remained in the confines of his darkened bedroom, in the refuge of laudanum dreams. Whether the drug or syphilis, in truth, caused his death was the subject of speculation. Of course everyone had the good taste not to mention such matters, except in hushed tones behind the young widow’s back, as though Allison wouldn't know she was the subject of gossip.

  In the end, Powell Sutton was the only friend who continued to call on the ailing Edmund. He saw Allison through her husband’s death, the arrangements that followed, and affairs that were settled. For this, Allison was grateful. Powell seemed her only friend at a time when sideways glances and innuendo of wagging tongues were her only society. In time she found it easier to avoid the judgment or patronizing pity by remaining at home. Home, however, was no longer hers. Edmund had lost the deed to their home in a card game. Homeless and penniless, Allison moved back to her parents’ Pittsburgh home to rely on their benevolence.

  There came a day when the gossip subsided, but by then, Allison had become weary of society. Social blather had drained her spirit and filled the void with disillusionment ensconced in a fragile shell of hope. Her mourning became her refuge, the widow’s weeds her armor protecting her from the rigors of societal trivialities.

  Here in her room, she felt safe. Reaching into her bag to unpack, she felt about for, and then seized, a letter. Eagerly, she pulled the letter from the bag and stared at the solitary “A” on the envelope. She glanced up with lustering eyes and walked over to the door. With a quiet caress she turned the lock. Her breath whispered in shallow and uneven rhythms as she walked to her bureau and sank into the chair. She pulled down the sloping front to reveal a desk and opened a drawer, sliding its contents about until she found a letter opener deep in the back. Yet such care she took to open the missive, that one scarcely would know how it set her heart racing.

  A,

  Please forgive me. For so long, I have looked at you and seen sorrow’s face. I touched your hand, wishing I could remove the pain. I was wrong to think I could do either.

  Your Dutchman

  Allison’s hands dropped to her lap. The letter quivered in the breeze. She looked through her tears, to the mountainous rise behind the carriage house.

  The night before, a young couple, close friends of the family, had shared the news that their first child was to be born in autumn. Allison was happy for them. Truly she was. Yet delight filled the room until it pressed against her sick spirit. She couldn't breathe. She faded into the background and slipped out to the porch in secluded relief. She held onto the porch rail and refused to cry.

  “Allison?” The familiar voice, low and vibrant, calmed her. She discreetly wiped a tear from her eye, then looked into the night sky.

  His cashmere coat sleeve brushed against her arm as he stepped closer and asked, “What are you looking for?”

  Her eyes were fixed on the stars. “I’m watching the clouds in the moonlight,” she said. Moments passed in comfortable silence. “It looks like a ship, doesn’t it?”

  “The Flying Dutchman,” he said, not looking at the cloud.

  At first, Allison didn't reply. After furtively brushing a tear from her cheek, she let herself bask in the warmth of his voice. Then she looked into eyes that she knew would be vibrant and dark. His gaze cloaked her in velvet.

  “Flying Dutchman?”

  “He was a Dutch sea captain who dared to sail into the fierce headwinds of a storm near the Cape of Good Hope. He cursed the wind and swore he could master it. And for daring to go against the wind, he was condemned to sail for eternity, alone and shunned by all.”

  “Perhaps it’s not such a terrible fate.”

  “Allison,” he said, with tender reproach.

  She looked up. She wasn't used to the sound of affection. She replied, “With solitude comes peace.” Had he heard her voice quaver?

  “Or loneliness.”

  The rich timbre of his voice resonated in her soul. Robust laughter erupted from the party inside. Allison glanced to where window’s glow met the night, and watched it dissipate in the darkness.

  “There are worse kinds of loneliness,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “I believe that you do.” She dared not look at him now.

  They were alike in this. Each had come to know loneliness as a mutual friend. To share it now filled her and stretched the scars until her heart ached.

  She watched the moon break free of the obstructing cloud. A thought wrenched at her heart. “Is there no escape?”

  He stared silently at the drifting cloud in guarded melancholy.

  Once more she inquired, “For your Dutchman—will nothing free him of his curse?”

  “A love that’s true.” His manner was blunt. Then he smiled and spoke as though finishing a child’s tale. “He can be released from his fate if he can find a love so true that she will be faithful unto death.”

  “Faithful unto death!” Allison nearly laughed. “How easy for him—
with no such obligation in return.” Her smile faded. She grabbed hold of the porch and looked away, trying to hide her crumbling composure. But her fingertips trembled and gave her away.

  His hand covered hers where it gripped the rail. He knew her heart and had touched it. With the touch of his hand, he now reached out to console and to shield her. She turned her hand over. His palm pressed against hers and their fingers entwined. Her lids lowered and tightened. As though it might draw her to safety, she held fast to his hand. Then, with tentative wonder, she inclined her head to him. Apprehensive. Astonished.

  “Allison!” It was her mother’s voice.

  The two hands slipped apart.

  “Allison!”

  Allison buried the letter in the back of a drawer and turned her head to listen as the front door closed below.

  Her mother called again. “Allison!”

  The banister creaked at the top of the stairs as the bedroom door swung open.

  Chapter 3

  At the large oak desk of the Johnstown Public Library sat Maggie MacLaren. Her chin on her hands, her gaze wandered to a window and followed the sun. It shone in like limelight upon a gray-haired man with a bushy gray moustache while he perused the daily paper. A pair of unseen feet shuffled across the wooden floor until it creaked in protest and surrendered to silence. Cutting through the stillness, a newspaper page turned with a crackle then settled with a soft rustle. Thoughts echoed through Maggie’s head like an incessant series of freshwater droplets in a torpid pond.

  “Why does Mr. Higginbotham wear the same shirt day after day?”

  A wooden pencil rolled off her desk and dropped onto the floor. She stooped to retrieve it.

  “I wonder if he’s ever washed it.

  “Did I say that out loud?” She stood and looked about the surface of her desk with growing concern.

  Hollow footsteps rounded the corner of a stack of books. Maggie glanced up and smiled politely at a plump woman who handed her a worn book with an unremarkable cover. She stamped the book and sent the kindly woman on her way with a few cordial but empty remarks. As the heavy door abraded against its frame and closed, Maggie continued to stare, with a sigh.