Home of the White Dolphin - Segment 34

Chapter 166

August 18, 1909 – At the Boston home of Helen Moreau

Blythe tearfully hugged her granddaughter, while Robbie remained nearby, waiting his turn. When the grief-stricken couple arrived in Boston, they immediately made their way to the old Templeton house.

“Poppy,” Cynthia could only get out that one word when Robbie eventually put his strong arms around the young woman.

“It’s okay, child. We’re here now.” Robbie glanced over her shoulder at his wife, feeling a bit helpless with two crying women to comfort.

It took a long time for Cynthia to tell her grandparents all she knew about Helen’s lifestyle after they had returned to England. She tried to gloss over her mother’s way of dying, but Blythe eventually pulled the truth out of her.

“David said many women enjoy men dominating them like that.” Cynthia sat on the sofa between Blythe and Robbie. She kept her head bowed, ashamed to look at Robbie. Because of this, she missed the look Blythe gave her husband. They both remembered how Mitchell often treated Elizabeth, how he insisted she always obey every order he gave her.

Blythe was unwilling to discuss her own parents with Cynthia, so she decided to change the subject. “You’ve mentioned David a couple times. Why don’t you tell us a bit about him? Can we meet him?”

For the first time since her grandparents arrived that afternoon, Cynthia smiled. “David Quinn is a policeman, and he was one of the men who investigated Mama’s death.” She took Robbie’s hand in hers. “Poppy, he’s a lot like you, rather large and intimidating.” She patted his hand. “But he’s also wonderful, gentle and sweet, just like you.”

“When can we meet this wonderful man?” Blythe hoped David was nothing like Rick and Wayne Moreau had been.

Delighted, Cynthia continued by saying, “When I told him the White Dolphin was docking today, he invited all of us to his parents’ home for dinner tomorrow evening.” She giggled, and then went on, “I’ve been there often for Sunday dinner, so I better prepare you. All of David’s two brothers and three sisters are married, and there always seem to be dozens of cousins at the large dining room table.” Cynthia noticed Blythe’s wide-eyed look at this statement. She realized meeting such a large family might be an overwhelming experience for her grandmother, an only child.

Robbie also saw his wife’s nervous expression. “Don’t worry, Blythe. Even though I hardly remember my sister Adriana, having siblings can be fun.” He turned to face Cynthia when saying, “I’m looking forward to meeting the Quinn clan tomorrow. I think, however, you should show your grandmother to her room. She’ll need every minute of her beauty sleep if she’s going to meet strangers.” Robbie grinned and ducked before helping his wife to her feet.

* * *

The following evening around midnight, Cynthia sat down at her secretary writing desk, her head still swimming from the events of the past few hours. She pulled out the thick family diary, opened it to the next blank page, and wrote, “October 19, 1909.”

Chapter 167

March 03, 2009 – At the mansion in Walker’s apartment

Walker began reading the diary quietly to Samantha, trying to avoid waking the sleeping baby. “October 19, 1909. I’m writing what happened tonight for anyone who reads this family diary in the future. The twists and turns of fate will never again surprise me. Tonight, I met David’s grandparents for the first time. They traveled from Brookline especially to meet me, and only later in the study did I find out why David wanted this meeting.”

* * *

“Cynthia, don’t be nervous.” David could feel Cynthia’s body trembling after he put his arm around her waist. “They’re just my mother’s parents.’ He looked across the room at the older couple seated by the unlit fireplace. He had to admit his grandfather did look rather intimidating. His craggy face became set in stern lines of disapproval as two of the younger children ran yelling through the living room. The woman sitting on the sofa next to him appeared much younger, and David watched her trying not to smile.

Robbie, holding tightly to Blythe’s hand, walked into the room behind David and Cynthia. He looked around the large room at all the people gathered there and understood why Blythe was trying to hastily back out of the room. “Come on, honey. You know you already approve of David, so how bad can his family be?”

David first introduced Robbie and Blythe to his own parents. He decided to hold off with more introductions until the older British couple felt more comfortable with his large family. Leaving the four of them to get better acquainted, David led Cynthia into the study across the hall from the living room.

“Sweetheart, I wanted to ask you something in private, and please don’t say no.”

David shocked Cynthia when he got down on one knee in front of her. They had been dating for the last year, but she still felt unprepared for what he was doing. Tears came into her eyes as he opened and held out a jewelry box. Inside, she saw a beautiful diamond ring that sparkled in the light from the overhead chandelier.

Seeing Cynthia was unable to speak, David continued with his proposal. “You need me to keep you safe and, more importantly, to love and treasure you always. Please marry me, sweetheart, and become Cynthia Quinn.”

Cynthia, still unable to speak because of the emotions flooding her body, could only nod. When she felt David placing the ring on her finger, she finally came out of her daze and flung her arms around his neck. “Yes…David, yes.”

For long minutes, they embraced until a quiet cough let them know they weren’t alone. Robbie stood by the open doorway, a frown on his face. “David, your mother asked me to come get you.”

“Be right with you, sir.” David kissed Cynthia one last time before walking with her toward Robbie. “I just asked your granddaughter to marry me, and she said she would.”

Still frowning, Robbie moved to stand nose to nose with David, but this didn’t even cause the larger man to flinch. “I gathered something like that, and you’d better never do anything to hurt her. We made a mistake leaving her mother in America alone and unprotected, and we are not going to let that happen again.”

“I understand, sir. Cynthia is very precious to me, and I would never do anything to cause her pain of any kind. You can count on that.” David reached out his hand, and Robbie reluctantly shook it.

Cynthia and Robbie followed David through the mob of family members until they stood in front of the elderly, distinguished-looking gentleman and his beautiful wife. With a big grin on his face, David made the introductions. “Grandma and Grandpa, I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Cynthia Moreau. These are her British grandparents, Robbie and Blythe Whiting.”

When he continued with, “Robbie, Blythe, and Cynthia, these are my mother’s parents, Edgar and Adriana Statham,” David became worried when he saw how pale Robbie’s face became.

Blythe knew what was happening, and asked the question Robbie was unable to get out. “Mrs. Statham, was your maiden name Medici?”

After Adriana nodded, surprised by the question, she looked more closely at Robbie. “Robbie? As in Roberto? Are you my Roberto?”

“What’s going on?” David whispered to Cynthia, but she could only shrug. Cynthia knew nothing about Robbie’s childhood or that Adriana Statham was once the 15-year-old sister of Roberto Medici.

* * *

Hearing the downstairs clock chiming midnight, Cynthia hurried to finish her diary entry. “After the tears and catching up on decades apart ended, David made the formal announcement of our engagement to the rest of his family. I swear they decided our future life together before he finished speaking. I couldn’t stop laughing at our grandparents planning all the details for our wedding, deciding how many children we should have, and whether Robbie and Blythe should move permanently to America. To use an expression my loving husband-to-be often says, ‘Life is good!’”

* * *

Walker closed the diary after saying the last line a second time, agreeing with it wholeheartedly. “Life is good!” He carefully put the diary on the coffee table and took Genji from Samantha’s arms, making sure not to wake the baby. Samantha cuddled up against Walker, happier and more content than she had ever been before. She knew Walker loved her as much as she loved him, and she trusted him to never allow anything or anybody to ever hurt her again.

Chapter 168

October 27, 1915 –At the South Boston home of Cynthia Quinn

Cynthia smiled at seeing her husband playing on the floor with their two-year-old son. She was sitting in the rocking chair David had given her for her last birthday. In her hand was the most recent letter from Jason Edgeworth.

David looked over at her when he heard her groan. “You sound like the baby is active again.”

“You think?” Cynthia was a week past the expected delivery date of her second child and feeling more and more like a beached whale. Her mercurial mood often shifted in the space of seconds from ecstatic to be having another child to ready to kill David for putting her in this condition. Right now, it was the latter as it felt to Cynthia like the unborn child was doing somersaults.

“Why don’t you read me Jason’s letter? It might take your mind off, well, you know, the discomfort.” David, a most patient of husbands, was ready to deliver the baby himself just to get his sweet and loving wife back.

“Discomfort? You call this discomfort?” Cynthia knew she sounded like a termagant and tried to calm down. She loved David and loved having his children. Soon after they married three years ago, they decided to try to have a large family. Cynthia had to admit she enjoyed the trying even more than the having. Her husband was a gentle lover who had eased her fears about sex their first night together.

“The letter?” David prompted, curious about what was going on with the Edgeworth branch of Cynthia’s family. Three years ago, he had met the aristocratic Lord Edgeworth along with his wife and newborn son. Colin’s nanny, a young American girl named Nancy, sat silently holding the baby while the two families became acquainted.

“Okay, okay. God, you’re impatient.” The return of Cynthia’s smile took the sting out of her complaint, and she began reading.

“My dear Cynthia, I apologize for the long delay in writing, but much has happened since we last visited you. On arrival at my estate in Swadlincote, I found my 84-year-old mother in failing health. After all, I should have expected this at her age, but it was a terrible shock when she passed on one cold February night two months after we returned.”

Cynthia stopped reading to tell David, “I remember Mama telling me about a visit Blythe made when she was 15 to the Edgeworth estates. My grandmother told Mama and her brother fascinating stories about her Aunt Jane and what a beautiful woman she was.”

David came to stand close to the rocking chair. He leaned over to run a finger down Cynthia’s cheek. “That beauty must run in your family.”

Cynthia tried to ignore him, but found it difficult. Even after years of marriage, David could send shivers of desire throughout her body with a simple word or touch. She finally forced herself to continue reading.

“After the disappearance and supposed death of our daughter Hannah back in America, my wife Marianne never was mentally the same. Although born and raised in England, she now hated it and demanded in 1912 that I let go back to our mansion near the west coast of your country. Sadly, she never made it to a lifeboat after the ship she was returning on hit an iceberg.”

“The Titanic! Jason’s wife was on the Titanic.” Cynthia looked at David, shocked at reading this. The news of the sinking of this White Star ship on her maiden voyage had filled the Boston newspapers for weeks.

“What else does Jason write?” David, by now, was watching his wife closely. Every now and then, he would see her wince in pain.

“There’s not much more,” said Cynthia, continuing with the letter. “Nancy, the young woman who came with us as Colin’s wet nurse and then nanny, was a great comfort during my time of grief. We married six months after Marianne’s death, and we returned to America in December. In my eagerness to return to my new American home, I apologize for not stopping to visit with your family once again. Please give my regards to your Quinn family. Lord Jason Edgeworth.”

David took the letter from Cynthia and placed it with the others in the back of the ship’s log. Soon after their wedding, Cynthia had given him the task of keeping the log current from the male side of her family. He already had recorded the birth of their son and would be adding the addition of the second child to their family.

Seeing Cynthia suddenly bend over gasping in pain, he realized the newest Quinn would arrive soon.

Chapter 169

March 03, 2009 – At the mansion in Walker’s apartment

Jack was alone in Walker’s office going over some of the mansion’s accounts when the desk phone began ringing. Since Walker was at Hannah’s Home awaiting the arrival of the newest damaged child to his orphanage, Jack didn’t hesitate to answer the phone.

He closed his eyes in shock at hearing the Westbrook Sheriff’s news. “Yes, Sheriff Bitson, I’ll find Walker and tell him.” After talking a few minutes more, Jack hung up the phone. He looked around the empty room, unashamed tears running down his face. “Even Walker won’t be able to fix this.”

* * *

In the nearby town of Westbrook, all hell had broken out. Soon after lunch break, when the small town’s high school classes were in session, a small fire in the furnace room broke out. By the time the understaffed and poorly financed fire department arrived at the scene, the old wooden building was an inferno with many of the rescued children and teachers suffering serious burns.

With the ambulances from the hospital on Walker’s estate racing toward town, Sheriff Bitson felt it his duty to notify the man who had the hospital built about the upcoming influx of so many patients. Jack quickly found Walker, and the two men hurried over the hill to help in any way they could. The sound of sirens warned them and the waiting emergency room staff of the imminent arrival of the ambulances.

Walker and Jack spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening in consultation with various town council members. Furious at himself for not knowing about the condition of the high school, Walker left Jack to get details about the high school class size and other statistical information as well as what the fire department needed. Meanwhile, he headed over to the bungalow of Felix Depree, the renowned San Francisco architect who now lived on the estate.

When the Paul Bunyan look-alike answered the door, Walker gave the large man a four-word order. “Build me a school!” Felix only grinned at his friend, since challenges like this had become common between them over the years.

Later that night, when Walker finally took a breather from working with Felix and the town council, he plopped down on his living room sofa. The day was ending better than expected with no lives lost from the fire. The patients with more serious burns were airlifted to Springfield General Hospital’s Burn Unit 30 miles away.

Plans already were underway to build a large school for classes K to 12 on the edge of Walker’s estate nearest to town. The school would be for both all the Westbrook children and the ones living nearby at Hannah’s Home. Walker had already notified his phalanx of recruiters to scout the country for the best of teachers. Jack’s initial thought that even Walker couldn’t overcome this challenge had been wrong.

“Sam, are you home?” Walker called out, too tired to get up and look for her. Hearing no answer, he assumed Samantha was asleep in their bedroom. Even the children’s noisy voices were silent since all three were sound asleep in the new section of the apartment.

Walker gave a big sigh of contentment, savoring this rare time of quiet. He decided to put off going to bed and reached for the ship’s log on the coffee table. After kicking off his shoes, Walker stretched out on the sofa and opened the log to where a bookmark was sticking out. He had been reading the entries by David Quinn off and on for the last week and began grinning as he read the next one.

“Leave it to my Cynthia to make life difficult for me. I love the woman, but I swear she waited on purpose to tell me the baby was coming until it was too late to get to the hospital. Little Julian Quinn arrived with my help. I never knew what a bloody mess giving birth was or how painful. My delicate little wife grabbed hold of my hands, and today I have huge black and blue marks all around my wrists. Yes, very painful!”

Flipping through the next few pages, Walker read about the birth of three more children over the years. Finally, he got to David’s last entry in the ship’s log dated August 16, 1931. Exhausted and barely able to keep his eyes open, Walker decided to wait until the following day to read it with Samantha.

Chapter 170

March 04, 2009 – Early morning at the Walker’s apartment

Samantha slowly opened her eyes and yawned. She rolled over to wake her sleeping husband and found his side of the bed cold and empty. Memories of the previous day came back, and she wondered if Walker had even made it home. After putting a robe on over her negligee, Samantha walked barefoot out into the living room. Lately, she’d adopted Walker’s habit of going around without shoes within the apartment.

“There you are,” she whispered, seeing Walker sound asleep on the sofa. Open on the coffee table were the two books, and she also noticed the Edgeworth letters strewn over the table. Samantha picked up what appeared to be the most current one, if the condition of the writing paper was any indication. Before she could begin to read it, she heard Walker mumbling. After many weeks of marriage, she knew this talking in his sleep was a precursor to Walker slowly waking up.

Replacing the letter on the table, Samantha watched her husband stretch out his long body before he caught sight of her. “Good morning, Walker. What time did you get back last night?” She sat down on the edge of the sofa and used her hip to push him further back.

Walker pulled her down so she was lying on the wide sofa close to him. “Late, but I read until around midnight.” After giving her a gentle kiss and hugging her body even closer to his, Walker recapped what he’d learned about Cynthia and David. “I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, so maybe we can finish reading both books over breakfast.” Walker gave Samantha one last passionate kiss before nudging her to move. “First, though, I need my coffee.”

Half an hour later, with the early morning sun barely peeking over the horizon, Walker felt ready to face this day’s challenges. His belly was filled with the delicious breakfast sent up by Chef Geoffrey. He and Samantha returned to the sofa, fresh mugs of coffee in hand. They were eager, although a bit sad, to read the final entries in the diary and ship’s log started by Elizabeth and Mitchell many generations ago.

Handing the diary to Samantha, Walker opened the thick ship’s log to the last page on which there was writing. He had difficulty reading David Quinn’s entry because of the crinkled paper from water stains. “I am writing my final entry on this sad day, August 16, 1931. As always, my beloved Cynthia refused to listen to me. I repeatedly told her that our four sons were enough, but she insisted I deserved a daughter, too. Yesterday is my fault for giving in, one last time, to the woman I would have given my life for. Instead, she gave me hers trying to give birth. Even after the doctors told her she was too old to survive labor, Cynthia ignored them, so now I have a daughter, but no wife.”

Walker felt Samantha move even closer to him on the sofa. He hurried to finish David’s entry, knowing his tenderhearted wife was feeling the man’s pain. “Cynthia would love this tiny scrap of life, but I feel only emptiness when I look at Jocelyn. When Cynthia chose that name months ago, if the baby was a girl, she told me it means happy. I hope this child that caused my wife’s death doesn’t have a happy life, for from now on, I won’t.” Closing the log, Walker looked over at Samantha and saw tears running down her face.

“Sam, please don’t cry. Maybe little Jocelyn did have a happy life, despite her father’s hateful wish. Remember, he wrote this the day after Cynthia died, and he was most likely filled with bitterness and pain over her loss.”

Samantha sniffled and nodded. “You’re probably right.” She opened the diary, hoping to read something to wipe away David Quinn’s harsh words. Walker was relieved to see a small smile replace Samantha’s tears. She read the next few entries by Jocelyn, first as a teenager and then a young woman. .

While reading one by Jocelyn dated January 10, 1954, she heard Walker let out a sharp gasp. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just keep going. Please, Sam.”

Walker’s voice sounded strange, but she went back to reading. “Billy picked up the packages I’d dropped when he bumped into me. Since he looked harmless, I accepted his invitation to join him in the coffee shop for hot chocolate. Hours later, with the waitress giving us dirty looks for tying up a booth, it felt like I’d known Billy all my life.

“Since last year when I got my own apartment, life has been very lonely. I’ve never been close to any of my family. When only a child, I felt my father’s coldness, and my oldest brother once told me I’d killed my mother. Over the years, the rest of his extended Quinn family eventually took their lead from him. Wanting to start a new life soon after I turned 23, I made the daring decision to move from Boston to San Francisco.”

“How sad,” whispered Samantha. She also was raised by a cold, unfeeling father and understood the deep pain and loneliness Jocelyn must have felt. Not getting a response from Walker, who hadn’t said a word all the time she read that entry, she turned the page. “Walker, I’m at the last entry in the diary. It’s dated August 26, 1954.”

She looked once more at Walker and saw him looking back at her with a huge grin on his face. Confused, but delighted at his expression, Samantha went back to reading. “Billy, the most wonderful man in the world, the man I couldn’t help loving because of his gentle nature and shy charm, asked me to marry him last month. Later this afternoon, only a few friends will come to our small wedding. Billy’s family lives too far away, and mine, of course, wouldn’t come, even if invited. No matter! In a few hours, I will become Mrs. William Walker.”

After she said those last three words, Samantha swung around to face her husband. “When did you guess?”

Walker started laughing, took the diary out of Samantha’s hand and carefully put it next to the ship’s log on the coffee table. He then stood and picked her up in his arms, swinging around and around until he was too dizzy to stand.

Plopping back down on the sofa, but still holding Samantha against his chest, Walker finally answered her question. “Dad always called Mom, I mean my adoptive mother, by the nickname Josie, never Jocelyn. As a kid, I thought Billy was a silly name for a grown man, but Mom said it with such love. Even as a young boy and then a teenager, I wanted to find a woman who would say my name as lovingly as that. It took a long time, but I finally did.” Walker paused to shower Samantha’s face with kisses, finally capturing her mouth with his.

With the mystery of Elizabeth’s diary and Mitchell’s ship log solved, Walker and Samantha carried on the family tradition with their own entries. For many happy years mixed with some sad ones, life went on at both Maison du Renard Rouge and Hannah Edgeworth’s Home for Found Children. The frightened, forgotten or abused continued to arrive at Walker’s two safe havens, each with a story to tell.

THE END OF THE HOME OF THE WHITE DOLPHIN