Chapter 28

It had been five days since Beau had left for Saint John. Five days of the women of Everwell watching the paper, holding their breath, hoping that Ben Miller would hold off on publishing his story. To her credit, Veronica Turnbull had, through the society papers and her connections at the New Women’s League, posted some glowing recommendations about Everwell, including the long-promised repudiation of the rumours that had made it into the same society columns a month before. But Ben Miller’s threats to publish the story about Maddy hung over them like Damocles’ sword.

“Mr. Miller is a horrid, wretched man,” Rimple said as she and Maddy headed out to the garden. Her normally bright expression had clouded over at the mere mention of his name. “I hope he trips and breaks his wrists. How can he be so cavalier about something so serious?”

“He’s a journalist,” she said. “A journalist who has to help his employer sell papers.”

“That’s hardly an excuse to ruin someone,” Rimple said, her bottom lip positively pouting. “I knew he was an awful person the moment he came to our Christmas pageant.”

“I thought you didn’t like him because he made fun of your sugarplum jelly”, Maddy said.

“The plums were too heavy for the gelatin. I was explaining it was an experiment,” she said, “but he laughed at it! Horrible man. And one who clearly does not appreciate the trial and error of the scientific method.”

Maddy almost wanted to smile, but her own mood was too heavy. The sun was high overhead, the afternoon air sultry, but with a hint of a breeze moving up from the Northwest Arm. It was a perfect day to be in her garden, away from everything and every care. Except even here, the worries that had haunted her could not be driven away. Nelson Taylor was like the blight on her roses, persisting even with the most diligent treatments.

And truth be told, it wasn’t just the awfulness of that man haunting her. It was this ache, as deep and persistent as blight, that weighed down her heart. There hadn’t been anything from Beau—not a telegram, not a word.

What had she expected? He had his sister to console, a company to run. Of course he’d promised his aunt and Lady Em that he would deal with Nelson Taylor, but what could he reasonably do?

“Miss Murray!”

Maddy’s attention was pulled out of the doldrums by the bright sound of a student’s voice. There, standing in the garden, her face as bright as a daisy, was Sylvie LeBlanc. The girl, who’d turned fourteen this year, had arrived at Everwell two years ago, as quiet and inward as a church mouse. It had taken a lot of patience and effort to bring the child out of her shell, formed from years of latent neglect. With her brown wavy hair, fair skin, and lean frame, she was still a girl of few words. To see her waving with an enthusiasm comparable to the more confident students, brought a much-needed smile to Maddy’s face.

This was why Everwell mattered. To give girls like Sylvie somewhere to bloom.

“Good afternoon, Sylvie,” Maddy said, suddenly feeling a sharp tinge of guilt. She’d left the roses in Rimple and Sylvie’s care, and she’d been home three days before even thinking about looking at them.

“I have exciting news,” Sylvie said, casting a glance to Rimple, as if looking for permission to continue, which Rimple granted with a familiar warm smile. “We have managed to isolate the blight. It hasn’t spread, and even better, it’s nearly gone on this bush.”

“It’s gone?” Maddy parroted. “Are you certain?”

“Sylvie’s been out here every day, checking the plants, applying the tonics. She even did a test with two separate plants to see which one worked better,” Rimple said, her facing beaming with pride. “I think Everwell has a budding horticulturist on their hands.”

Sylvie’s cheeks flushed scarlet, but there was an unmistakable sense of pride in her normally reserved looks.

“I can show you,” Sylvie said, turning her body and nodding in the general direction of her handiwork.

“Absolutely,” Maddy said, following the girl, who practically bounced with every step. Soon they came to the spot where Maddy had discovered the blight weeks ago. The place where she’d encountered Beau, idly plucking a rose and putting it in his lapel.

She inspected the stems and the leaves. While the blush pink colour of the flowers were now faded, the shiny deep green of the leaves looked remarkably healthy.

“We removed the worst of it, then I came out and treated the spots,” Sylvie said, pointing out the two bushes where she’d tested two different compounds. One clearly was healthier than the other. “When it seemed that one was working better than the other, we continued the treatment with the entire plant.”

Joy, tinged with bitter sweetness, sat side by side in Maddy’s chest, and she was struck by a curious sense of the passing on of something. That this garden, which she’d guarded so jealously since she first came to Everwell, was no longer just hers anymore. That she didn’t need to be here for her flowers to be loved. And that maybe, they weren’t just her flowers anymore—if they ever were.

And that was just fine.

“Thank you Sylvie,” Maddy said. “This is excellent. I don’t think—no, I am quite certain. I couldn’t have done better.”

If Sylvie had been pink before, she was practically incandescent now.

“I would like to know the recipe that you used,” Maddy said, her mind going to another garden, filled with overgrown roses and sage bushes. A garden that could have been hers, if she’d trusted Beau enough to accept it.

“Miss Jones and I kept excellent notes,” she said, hands clasped behind her back, looking to Rimple with so much pride it made Maddy smile. “I will show them to you.”

What would Rimple make of the big green recipe book at The Grove, Maddy wondered.

“Would you like to work here in the garden with me?” Maddy asked. “On a more regular basis? I could give you a section to look after, and it could be yours. Of course I can help you with it, but it could be yours to be in charge of, to manage as you like.”

Sylvie looked to Maddy, her eyes wide. “Really?”

Maddy nodded. “Really. I can’t think of anyone better.”

Sylvie nodded, her eyes bright, then threw herself at Maddy, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing hard. Maddy, overcome, started blinking back her own tears, patting the girl on her head. After a moment, Sylvie ended her embrace.

“Right,” Maddy said, clearing her throat. “Well, how about you take a look through the garden, and make a list of some areas you might like to take on. Tomorrow I’ll review and decide.”

“Thank you!” Sylvie said, then scurried away, leaving Rimple standing there, hands on her hips.

“What happened to you while you were away?” she asked.

Maddy pasted on a smile, which in itself was probably a mistake.

“Nothing,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “Aside from fixing up an old house to make it livable and trying to keep Beau da Silva out of trouble.” And out of her heart.

She failed at that one.

“Maddy,” Rimple pushed, cocking her head in that way of hers that she did when she was trying to solve one puzzle or another. Unlucky for Maddy, Rimple’s propensity for solving problems with only the barest whiff of a clue was quite high.

But Maddy wasn’t a riddle, or a piece of broken machinery. Broken, perhaps. But just as illogical as every other person with a brain and a heart that seemed to be forever at odds with each other.

Maddy turned on her heel and started walking back toward the manor house. While she was gone, the school had received a box of books from an anonymous donor, and to her great surprise, the rest of the spinsters had left it more or less undisturbed until she returned. That was something she could bury her nose in while trying to distract herself from Beau.

“You can’t ignore me forever you know,” Rimple said, persistent as always. “I just witnessed a miracle, and I need an explanation.”

“That was not miraculous,” she said. “Just rewarding someone for being good enough to manage the garden.”

“That is exactly my point,” she said. “I didn’t think that was anyone. Next you’re going to tell me you’re going to let Ivy Webber manage the library.”

Maddy rolled her eyes. “Ivy Webber is a bright girl, but the only person I’d trust with that collection is her father,” she said. “And he’s busy.”

Before long, the manor house was in sight, and she could see Phillipa on the front step, waving to them. Maddy’s heart leapt into her throat. She picked up her skirt and ran toward the house, Rimple a few steps behind.

“What is it?” Maddy asked, bounding up the steps, fear crackling underneath her skin.

Phillipa shook her head. “It’s from Dominic. He says he has some encouraging news. He’s on his way home.”

“Has he contacted Ben Miller?” Rimple asked, clearly not trusting any motives of good will or patience from the journalist.

“He hasn’t said,” Phillipa said, an unmistakable line down the centre of her forehead betraying her calm demeanour. Maddy had seen little that could ruffle Phillipa’s feathers, and as yet, that hadn’t changed. “However, at this point I would say no news on that front is good news. Perhaps the Turnbulls have managed to exert some influence on Mr. Miller though Simon Nickerson.”

Maddy nodded, stifling her urge to ask about Beau. She hated herself for thinking of him, for wishing he was here. How had he become so necessary to her? She had gone so long without missing anyone—especially a man.

But she missed Beau da Silva.

After Malcolm died, after she’d fled and learned to protect herself. And she’d done it so well it was almost as if she didn’t know how to stop doing it anymore. Even with the people who’d tried to be good to her.

Beau had been so hurt. She hadn’t thrown so much as a punch, and her knives had all been sheathed, but she’d injured him nonetheless. And he was still trying to help her.

The door swung open again, and Elouise, looking for all the world the beauty she always was, breezed in the front door. Her sunny expression, no doubt warmed by the news that Dominic was coming back, dimmed when she saw Maddy.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, coming straight to Maddy, and taking her hand. “Did something happen?”

The warmth of Elouise’s touch loosened Maddy’s careful control. Maddy caught Elouise’s wordless exchange with Rimple, then she pulled Maddy into the parlour as Rimple closed the door behind her, leaving just the two of them.

“Maddy,” Elouise said again, and though she was at least six inches shorter and five years younger, somehow seemed matronly—or at least, big sisterly. “Oh Maddy, my sweet friend. Why is your heart breaking? Did that man hurt you? Because if he did?— “

Maddy shook her head, barely able to see Elouise through tears she’d been determined not to shed.

“I love him,” she said, her voice a rough whisper.

“I see,” she said. “And do you think he returns the sentiment?”

Maddy squeezing her eyes shut, recalling every moment they’d been together. He’d shown her, over and over, that he cared for her.

“I think so.”

“Then what is the problem?”

“We can’t be together,” she said. “I can’t be with a man like him.”

“Is he heartless?”

“No—the opposite.”

“Then what?”

“Because he’s rich, and beautiful, and I—” She faltered. “I am not.”

Elouise straightened. “Did he tell you this?”

“No,” she said. “The opposite. The reason why we’re in this mess is that he nearly took Nelson Taylor’s head off in a public square for insulting me.”

“Well then, it sounds like he’s a man of good character who cares for you.”

“He does,” she said. “But it’s hard, Lou. So hard to believe.”

“Maddy,” Elouise said, taking Maddy by the hand and leading her to the settee, where the two sat, facing each other. “I know what it’s like to have a man’s attention. And I know how utterly meaningless it can be. Or at least I did, until I learned to trust the one man who gave me what I truly deserved—his respect and his love.”

“Wasn’t it scary?”

“Terrifying,” she said, her smile radiant. “But the thought of being without him was scarier still.”

“But what if being with him means not being here?”

Elouise took Maddy’s hands in hers, giving them gentle kiss.

“Maddy, my sweet warrior. You have a life to lead, and if you are letting your happiness slip from your fingers because of some misplaced idea that you must be here at the expense of your own joy, then Everwell isn’t your home. It’s your prison.”

Maddy blinked. She thought of Sylvie, so able to mind her flowers. And The Grove, with the berry patch, and the keyhole garden, which could be enough work for a dozen girls like Sylvie who might want a chance for something better.

Was it too late for that now?

The past week had been one of the most emotionally exhausting efforts in Beau’s entire life. His first concern was Jessica, who was one part fury at her husband’s betrayal, and the other pure anguish. It had been Jess who’d made the connection between them, after she’d discovered papers tucked away in the back of Neil’s drawer.

“He’d always been jealous of you, Beau,” she’d said, the two speaking quietly over a glass of their father’s best Scotch. “And maybe he accepted that the company would be yours, because you were the son. And then?—"

She’d trailed off, apparently unwilling to say aloud the secret that had been untold.

“—and then he found out I wasn’t.”

“You know?”

“I think I’ve always known,” he said, then relayed how he’d met Hollis and learned the truth.

“Well, Neil didn’t like it,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek, her voice rough tears and lost sleep.

“What are you going to do now?”

“Get a divorce,” she said. “Yes, it’s a scandal, but so is being married to the man who murdered my father and tried to take the company away from us.”

“You know the irony is that I probably would have let him run it,” Beau said. “He just needed to wait.”

“He couldn’t run that company,” Jessica said, swallowing the remainder of her drink in a single gulp and placing the thick crystal glass down with a heavy thunk on a nearby mahogany table. “The man didn’t know how to make a decision. The trick with a man like Neil was to make him think every good idea was his.”

“Well Christ, Jessica,” Beau said, sitting back. How in the hell did it make any sense that the one person who had the talent to run the company and the desire to do it, wasn’t entitled to it? He would fix this—and if the board didn’t like it, then they would find themselves out of job.

“What about you?” she’d asked. “You’ve spent half your time with the police, and half with this Dominic character.”

Beau told Jessica about Madeline and the threats she’d received from Nelson Taylor.

“I remember that case,” she said. “In Cape Enrage.”

“You do?”

“Of course—a woman killing the man who betrayed her like that?” she said. “There isn’t a woman in southeastern New Brunswick who hadn’t heard of that case. And half of them probably sympathized with her.”

“She didn’t do it,” Beau said. “But it happened so long ago, and it’s this Taylor’s word against hers.”

“I’ll talk to Sandra Tisdale. She’s Nelson’s cousin, and part of my ladies’ club,” she said. “She’s told me some absolutely horrible stories about that man. She might know something.”

It turned out that Mrs. Tisdale knew quite a bit about her cousin’s character and antics, and thanks to Dominic’s incredible detective work and Jessica’s connections, they’d uncovered enough evidence to cast a more than reasonable shadow of a doubt on Taylor’s story. Enough to send word to Miller that the story Nelson Taylor was telling might end up getting the Chronicle sued for libel. Dominic turned the evidence over to a detective he trusted on the Saint John police force, who was quite keen to learn that the last person to see Malcolm Ferguson alive was the same person accusing Madeline of the crime—Nelson Taylor.

Before he and Dominic boarded the train back to Halifax, he sent a second telegram to Aunt Veronica, and a third to Miss Everwell.

By the time the train had pulled into the station in Halifax the next day, it was mid-morning. Both he and Dominic had had a restless night of travel. Dominic was fuelled not only by solving two mysteries which would only boost his business prospects for even more higher profile cases, but by the desire to be reunited with his wife. It was the longest they’d been parted since he’d moved to Halifax from Boston two years ago, and one might have thought he’d been away for a year, rather than weeks. When they disembarked, she was indeed waiting on the platform, clad in a lovely blue dress and waving her hand to catch his attention. Beau had hoped to see Madeline there with her, which was ridiculous, of course. The disappointment at her absence created a hollow sensation in his gut. The only other person present was a gentleman he’d never met, in a brown tweed sack suit. He doffed his brown derby to Dominic, then went to fetch the luggage.

Dominic walked ahead, and Beau watched as Mrs. Ashe quite literally threw herself into her husband’s waiting arms. It was a charming display of affection, and the two didn’t seem particularly bothered by the stares of onlookers. Beau was tempted to look away and give the two a moment of privacy, when Dominic looked over his shoulder and waved him over.

“Mrs. Ashe,” Beau said, putting his hand to his hat in salutation. “I apologize for monopolizing your husband’s time.”

“For a good purpose, I hope,” she said.

Beau smiled. “I hope.”

Mrs. Ashe whispered something in her husband’s ear, and after a quick exchange and peck on the cheek, he went off to gather their luggage. Mrs. Ashe led him past the busy crowds to where the carriage was waiting.

“I just want to say, on behalf of all of us at Everwell who love her, that we appreciate what you are trying to do for Maddy.” She looked up at him, her manner soft, as if she knew she was treading on tender ground. “Everything.”

“I think very highly of her,” he said. “She bewitched me the moment I first met her.”

She looked him over, as if appraising his worth. He didn’t squirm. This was the one test he didn’t want to fail.

A sparkling black coach was waiting for them, where two porters had assisted the driver in loading their trunks. The driver nodded respectfully to the gentlemen.

“Good to see you back, Mr. Ashe, sir,” he said.

“Good to see you, Harold. I’ll have to thank Jeremy for the first-class transportation” he said, shaking the man’s hand before turning to Beau. “Beau da Silva, this is Harold Babcock, a friend of Everwell. He’ll be taking us there directly.”

“Your aunt is already enroute, Mr. da Silva,” he said, giving Beau a quick nod. “We shall meet everyone there.”

“Let’s go then,” he said, his fatigue leaving him. He had one last chance. One more idea. One more try at giving Madeline the dream she deserved. Maybe he wouldn’t be a part of it, and that would hurt like hell. But he couldn’t give up on her. Not yet.

They climbed inside the cab and made for Everwell.