Red Lily

wrote more.”
    He set down his glass, turned the next page. “ ‘Earlier today a woman came to Harper House. So pale, so thin was she, and in her eyes, Lucy, was something not only desperate but not quite sane. Danby—’ That was the butler at the time,” Mitch explained. “ ‘Danby mistook her for someone looking for employment, but she pushed into the house by the front door, something wild in her. She claimed to havecome for the baby, for her baby. For her son she called James. She said she heard him crying for her. Even if the child had cried, no one could hear in the entrance hall as he was tucked up in the nursery. I could not turn her away, could not wrest her away as she ran wildly up the stairs, calling for her son. I do not know what I might have done, but the mistress appeared and bade me show the woman up to her sitting room. This poor creature trembled as I led her in. The mistress would allow me to bring no refreshment. I should not have done what I did next, what I have never done in all my years of employment. I listened at the door.’ ”
    “So she did come here.” There was pity in Stella’s voice as she laid a hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “She did come for her baby. Poor Amelia.”
    “ ‘I heard the cruel things the mistress said to this unfortunate woman,’ ” Mitch continued. “ ‘I heard the cold things she said about the child. Wishing him dead, Lucy, God’s pity, wishing him and this desperate woman dead even as she, who called herself Amelia Connor, asked to have the child returned to her. She was refused. She was threatened. She was dismissed. I know now that the master got this child, this son he craved, with this poor woman, his lightskirt, and took the baby from her to foist it on his wife, to raise the boy here as his heir. I understand that the doctor and the midwife who attended this woman were ordered to tell her the child, a girl child, was stillborn.
    “ ‘I have known Mister Harper to be coldly determined in his business, in his private affairs. I have not seen affection between him and his wife, or from him for his daughters. Yet I would not have deemed him capable of such a monstrous act. I would not have believed his wife capable of aligning herself with him. Miss Connor, in her ill-fitting gray dress and shattered eyes, was ordered away, was threatened with the police should she ever come back, everspeak of what was spoken of in that room. I did my duty, Lucille, and showed her from the house. I watched her carriage drive away. I have not been easy in my mind since.
    “ ‘I feel I should try to help her, but what can I do? Is it not my Christian duty to offer some assistance, or comfort at the very least, to this woman? Yet my duty to my employers, those who provide the roof over my head, the food I eat, the money which keeps me independent, is to remain silent. To remember my place.
    “ ‘I will pray that I come to know what is right. I will pray for this young woman who came for the child she birthed, and was turned away.’ ”
    Mitch set the pages down. And there was silence.
    Tears slid down Hayley’s cheeks. Her head was lowered, as it had been during the last page of Mitch’s recital. Now she lifted it, and with her eyes shining with tears, smiled.
    “But I came back.”

seventeen
    “H AYLEY .”
    “Don’t.” Mitch stepped forward as Harper sprang off the floor. “Wait.”
    “I came back,” Hayley repeated, “for what was mine.”
    “But you weren’t able to get to the child,” Mitch said.
    “Wasn’t I? Didn’t I?” In the chair Hayley lifted her arms, held her palms up. “Aren’t I here? Didn’t I watch him, didn’t I sing him to sleep, night after night? And all the others who came after? They were never rid of me.”
    “But that’s not enough now.”
    “I want what’ s mine! I want my due. I want . . .” Her eyes darted around the room. “Where are the children? Where are they?”
    “Outside.” Roz spoke quietly. “Playing outside.”
    “I like the children,” Hayley said dreamily. “Who would have guessed? Such messy, selfish creatures. But so sweet,so soft and sweet when they sleep. I like them best when they sleep. I would have shown him the world, my James. The world. And he would never have left me. Do you think I want her pity?” she said in a sudden rage. “A housekeeper? A servant ? Do you think I want pity from her? Damn her and the rest of them. I should have killed them in their