Dawn of the Golden Promise (26 page)

“Well, I think you'd best ask her to come back tomorrow,” Alice said, impatient to be on her way. “I'll be happy to receive her then.”

Grumbling, the maid turned and stepped out into the hall. Alice followed her but stopped just outside the door, where the vast winding stairway, which ascended three entire floors, broke off at a landing.

Alice crossed to the banister. There was a clear view to the entrance hall below, and a young woman was standing at the foot of the staircase, looking up. Obviously she had taken it upon herself to enter without being invited.

“Why, what cheek!” Nancy exclaimed. “I'll be getting rid of her this moment, just see if I don't!”

Something in the forlorn expression of the young woman below held Alice captive. She stood staring down at her, and as she met the dark gaze lifted in her direction, she felt a sudden presentiment of dread.

She put a hand to Nancy's arm. “No,” she said, her voice none too steady, “show her upstairs, to the sitting room.”

Ruth Marriott had never envisioned Patrick's wife looking even remotely like the woman who stood across the room, studying her with a guarded but not unfriendly expression.

She wasn't sure how she
had
imagined Alice Walsh, once she learned of her existence. But it was certainly nothing like this short, plump woman in the plainly tailored rose-hued suit. She would have expected a much taller woman, elegantly dressed, with a lofty demeanor and suspicious eyes.

She would never have conceived the pleasant, surprisingly sweet face, the air of vulnerability, the uncertain smile. This woman, who stood regarding Ruth with far more kindness than she deserved, appeared warm and unassuming—and much younger than Ruth knew she must be.

For a moment Ruth stood frozen under the directness of the other's searching eyes.

“We haven't met before, have we?” Alice Walsh asked, her gaze growing more intent. “I'm afraid I didn't even get your name.”

“I…it's Ruth. Ruth Marriott.”

Ruth watched for some hint of response to her name, but of course there was none. “We…no, we haven't met,” she continued. “I came—”

Her throat suddenly felt burned and swollen. She stood, mute, unable to go on.

Something flickered in Alice Walsh's clear blue gaze, and guilt assailed Ruth as she realized the enormity of what she was about to inflict upon this woman.

“Mrs. Walsh…I didn't want to come here…”

Alice Walsh remained perfectly still, her expression cautious and perhaps slightly less charitable.

Ruth felt faintly nauseous. “I'm sorry,” she choked out. “I'm very tired. If I could sit down for a moment…”

A fleeting look of apprehension crossed the other woman's features. But she was very much the lady, responding at once to Ruth's appeal.

She gestured to a plum-colored upholstered chair. “Would you like some water?”

The thought of putting anything into her stomach, even water, made Ruth almost buckle with revulsion. She shook her head, stumbled to the chair, and collapsed.

For a few moments Ruth could do nothing more than sit staring at her hands, tightly knotted in her lap. Even when the nausea began to subside, she remained silent, miserable in the growing awareness of what she had done to herself…and to the woman across the room.

Finally Alice Walsh broke the silence. “You are obviously distressed about something, Miss Marriott. May I ask why you've come?”

Slowly Ruth dragged her eyes away from her hands to meet Alice Walsh's troubled frown. “I came…to you…because I didn't know what to do, where else to go. Patrick…your husband…warned me not to come, but I didn't feel I had a choice.”

Alice Walsh's gaze never wavered, though Ruth could tell that she was badly shaken. “I'm afraid I don't understand. How is it that you happen to know my husband?”

Ruth was suddenly overcome with the conviction that the woman standing in the middle of the room was a fine and decent person, no doubt altogether ignorant of her husband's betrayal. Alice Walsh had probably never hurt anyone in her life or given anyone reason to hurt her.

This was a woman, Ruth sensed, who lived a good life in a safe, secure world where people did not betray or wound one another. And now, through no fault of her own, a total stranger was about to bring that world crashing down around her. Alice Walsh's life would never be the same again.

Ruth opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came. Dragging in a long, tremulous breath, she finally forced the words up from her throat. “Mrs. Walsh…I'm sorry. But I have to tell you that I'm carrying your husband's child.”

18

A man lives alone with his mistakes.
A woman shares them.

IRISH PROVERB

T
he rain began, not gradually or gently, as hinted by the storm's slow building throughout the afternoon, but all at once, a sudden downpour bursting from the sky. A crash of thunder shook the house, rattling the windows. Lightning streaked, illuminating the sitting room for an instant with a sweeping flash of silver.

Alice stared at Ruth Marriott. In the eerie incandescence filling the room, the younger woman appeared to be trapped in a blaze of phosphor. Her gray suit took on a faint green hue, and her dark eyes smoldered like hot coals against the iridescent gleam of her skin, giving her an almost spectral appearance.

This is not real
, Alice told herself.
It's not happening.
The light faded, and once again shadows draped the room, broken only by an occasional arc of lightning at the window.

Finally Alice managed to speak, although her voice sounded thin and tremulous, like that of an old woman who has been threatened or vilified. “I think it best that you leave, Miss Marriott. Right away.”

Slowly, the dark eyes never leaving Alice's face, the young woman rose to her feet. Alice did not miss the effort the movement seemed to require. In a moment of alarm, she feared that Ruth Marriott was about to drop into a dead faint.

But the younger woman stood facing her. “Mrs. Walsh—”

Alice had no intention of hearing anything further from this deluded stranger. “I can't imagine what all this is about, but you've done a very unwise thing in coming here like this, saying such a thing to me about my husband!”

She knew she was rambling, could feel herself losing control.
So foolish, getting worked up over what was obviously either a horrible mistake or some sort of cruel scheme…

“Please, Mrs. Walsh, I think you should hear what I have to say. I know this is painful for you—”

“Painful?” Alice repeated incredulously. “Hardly painful, I can assure you. It's absurd! Now, I really must insist that you leave my home.” Alice had meant to sound firm and in control. Instead, a faint note of hysteria seemed to have crept into her voice, and she cringed.

Unbelievably, Ruth Marriott stood her ground, watching Alice with an expression that seemed to hold both regret and resolve.

“I'm telling you the truth, Mrs. Walsh,” she insisted quietly. “Your husband…Patrick—” She stopped, dropping her gaze to the floor. “We've been having an affair for months. I'm going to have a baby, and Patrick is the father.”

“You are
lying
!” Suddenly angry, Alice felt an irrational desire to strike the pale young woman standing so still, so solemnly, across from her. “My husband would never be unfaithful to me!”

Ruth Marriott looked at her with a strangely pitying expression. “But he
has
been unfaithful, Mrs. Walsh, though I can certainly understand why you find it difficult to believe. Patrick…is a most convincing liar. He lied to
me
right from the beginning. He told me that his wife was dead.”

Stunned, Alice reeled as if from a blow.
“How dare you?”
she choked out. “
You're
the liar! I want you out of my house this instant!”

Again the young woman regarded her with that unaccountable look of regret, as if she found Alice a pathetic figure, one to be treated with great pity.

For the first time since this strange young woman had leveled her outrageous charge against Patrick, Alice found herself doubting her husband's fidelity. A sickness rose up inside her, and an acrid taste filled her mouth.

“I could tell you things about your husband, Mrs. Walsh…intimate things…that only you would know. Please don't make me do that.” Ruth Marriott spoke more quietly now, a flush spreading over her face. “For both our sakes, please don't.”

Dazed as she was, Alice heard the threat and hesitated. Her mind raced. Even if Patrick had, during a lapse of judgment, trifled with the girl, it didn't necessarily mean that he had fathered her child. Obviously, she was bent on extortion.

“Why did you come here?” Alice demanded. “What do you want?”

“I want your husband to take responsibility for his behavior. I'm going to need help—financial help—in raising my child.
Patrick's
child. He tried to buy me off with a thousand dollars, but he's not going to get rid of me so easily. I stand to lose my job, my apartment—everything—any day now, and I'm going to need help caring for the baby.”

Alice stared at her. “Patrick…has given you money?” she said thickly, dread twisting inside her. “You've actually confronted him with this?”

Ruth Marriott's face contorted into a mask of bitterness. “Oh yes,” she said. “I confronted him. Patrick's solution is for me to either have an abortion—or marry a ‘fat, balding butcher'! He refuses to take any responsibility whatsoever for the baby. I warned him that I would come to you, but he didn't believe me. He threw me out of his office.”

Alice stood utterly still. A crawling sensation of cold traveled down her shoulders and along her spine. Rain drummed against the window so hard that the glass seemed likely to shatter, while lightning flared and crackled. Alice trembled as if caught in the throes of a fever. She steeled herself against the weakness, clenching her fists until pain shot all the way up her forearms.

“I don't know what you thought you could possibly gain by coming here with your lies,” she said as evenly as she could manage, “but you should have spared us both. I must tell you that if you don't leave, I will have to see that you are forcibly removed.”

“You know I'm telling the truth.”

Again Alice would have denied the woman's accusations, but something in the quiet, even voice and unwavering gaze made her hesitate.

“Mrs. Walsh, I didn't want to do this. I didn't want to come here. You must believe that if I had known Patrick was lying, if I had known he wasn't really a widower, I would never have become involved with him.” She stopped, pressing a hand to her abdomen in a thoroughly maternal gesture. “I'm not a bad woman, Mrs. Walsh. At least, I never was before I met Patrick. But he promised to
marry
me. As soon as the children were older, he said, we would be married. Please, try to understand how it happened.”

Something in the appeal of those desperate words, some plea in the wounded dark eyes, pierced Alice's heart. She knew then, with an awful, wrenching certainty, that Ruth Marriott was telling the truth.