Chapter 6

Am I dreaming? Am I dead?

That’s what Claire thought as she was walking through the woods. The area was foggy, but the moon lit up the trees.

“Over here Claire!” was the voice she heard. It was the same voice she heard as she was clinging to life on the log going down the river.

The light lit up a path. The leaves appeared almost golden. As she walked down the path, she had the feeling she was in a very familiar place.

Is this Windham Manor? That’s crazy. It wasn’t near the river. In fact, she didn’t remember leaving the river.

Was she rescued? She no longer felt wet, or cold.

“Claire, I’m waiting!” the voice said.

“I’m coming as fast as I can!” she replied. “And why are you calling me Claire? Don’t you know I’m Charlie?”

She finally came to a clearing. In the middle of the clearing was the garden at Windham Manor. In the middle of the garden was the fountain, lit up in golden glory. Sitting on the edge of the fountain was a girl about her age dressed in white. She had a ribbon in her hair.

“Who are you?” Claire asked. “Are you an angel? Are you a ghost?”

The girl laughed.

“I’m your sister!” the girl said.

“I don’t have a sister!” Claire said. “I have four brothers, Lucas, Robert, Eli and Samuel. I don’t have a sister.”

“Stop being silly, Claire!” the girl giggled. “First you say you’re a boy named Charlie. Then you say you have no sister.”

Claire was confused.

“I want to be Claire, but I know I’m Charlie,” she said. “Can’t you see that?”

“You are Claire, you are a girl, can’t you see that?” the girl replied.

“Stop teasing me!” Claire said.

“I’m not teasing you!” the girl said. “Come here, I’ll show you.”

Claire walked up to the girl, who took her hand. The girl led Claire to the fountain.

“Look there at the reflection!” the girl said, pointing to the water.

Claire looked. She could not believe her eyes. She saw two girls’ reflection in her water. They were wearing identical white dresses. They had the identical bows in their hair.

Claire looked at her clothes. She wasn’t wearing the boys’ rags she wore when she ran away from the slums. She had on the white dress she wore in the reflection.

“You look really confused Claire,” the girl said.

“Why am I here?” Claire replied. “Am I dead? Am I dreaming?”

“You’re not dead,” the girl said. “That would destroy momma. That would ruin my plan.”

Destroy momma? Ruin your plan? Claire was more confused than ever.

“I was very sick,” the girl said. “I had to go away. Momma was sad. I knew my sister was going to come. She needed to come. I knew your name, but I didn’t know where you were until that day you and that boy Robert saw momma at my grave on my birthday.”

Saw momma at your grave? Claire thought.

“You’re Emily?” Claire asked.

“Silly Claire!” the girl giggled. “You are so funny! Of course I’m Emily! Don’t you know your own sister?”

“You’ll have to excuse me,” Claire said, feeling a little annoyed. “This is all really new to me. I’m really confused.”

Emily smiled.

“I’m sorry you’re confused Claire,” she said. “I didn’t mean to tease you. You’ve been lost your whole life. You even thought you were a boy. I’m just glad I found you. I’m glad I led you here.”

“How did you lead me here from the river?” Claire said.

“I wasn’t talking about leading you from the river,” Emily said. “I was talking about the day you were walking King George. I knew if I could get King George to come through the fence, you would have to find your way home to momma.”

*****

The O’Hara home was full of weeping. All of the families of the slums took part in the search, but Charlie’s body could not be found.

“I am afraid he’ll never be found,” the sheriff told Walter O’Hara. “We did all that we could.”

Meggie O’Hara stayed one night at Windham Manor. She and her three youngest sons moved into a cottage owned by Mrs. Windham. But she returned to the slums to make funeral preparations. She appreciated at the well wishers, the mourners.

She wore black as a woman who lost her son should.

“It is all my fault,” her husband said. “Can you ever forgive me?”

“I don’t know if I can ever forgive you Walter for what you did to my son,” Meggie O’Hara said. “I will never come back to you. And I don’t want you to come near the cottage. I don’t want you around my youngest sons.”

She walked up to Lucas, who had a sad look on his face.

“You are welcome at the cottage,” she told Lucas as she touched the side of his face.. “You are my son. I cannot shut my children out of my life. But the only way I will let you come around is that you remember your place. I am your mother. You disrespected me once. It will never happen again!”

She and Walter O’Hara then met with the parish priest to go over the service. It would be held at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, a modest church where many of the Irish immigrants worshipped.

“That would be wonderful Father Joseph,” Meggie O’Hara said when told there would be a grave marker for Charlie in the church cemetery. Most of the immigrants ended up burying their dead in a pauper cemetery.

“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Mary Windham donated it along with a very generous gift to the church. It was rather an unusual gift from a Protestant. She felt the grave stone was the least she could do.”

The entire town of Eden Hills heard about the death of the young Irish boy.

“It was a great tragedy,” one of the ladies of the Sanitary Society said. “I hear his father beat him to death and actually disposed of the body.”

It was amazing how many rumors spread about Charlie’s tragic death.

“How do they come up with those stories?” Mary Windham asked Myron as she watched the funeral procession go from the slums to the church.

“I don’t know where Mrs. O’Hara gets her strength,” she told one of her friends, who was also watching the procession. In fact, many in town came out to watch the procession, more out of curiosity.

“Is it true the boy used to work for you?” another friend of her asked.

“Yes, and he was such a delightful worker,” she said. “He really helped me in my garden. I will miss him a lot.”

The service, according to the Eden Hills Recorder newspaper, was a beautiful one. The newspaper sent a reporter to the service. None of the Irish immigrants protested.

“The mother seemed to be a tower of strength,” Mirilla read to Mrs. Windham. “The father wept continually.”

“That is the great tragedy of all of this,” Mary Windham said. “He didn’t care about his son while he was living. He cares now that his child is gone? No, he will never truly know how it feels to lose a child. I really wonder if it is all just an act.”

*****

Weeping. That’s what Claire heard as she was waking from her slumber.

She slowly opened her eyes and saw her “ma” — Meggie O’Hara — sitting by the right side of her bed, holding her hand. To her left was “momma” — Mary Windham — sitting on the left side. Both women were crying, neither aware she was waking.

She was in the most comfortable bed she’d ever slept in in her life. She was wearing a girl’s nightgown and had an old fried — Beatrice — cradled under her right arm.

“Momma” she whispered groggily as she squeezed Mary Windham’s hand.

“Claire!” Mary Windham shouted. “You’re awake! Meggie, she’s awake!”

The two women hugged Claire and showered her with kisses.

“How do you feel?” Meggie O’Hara asked her.

“My head feels hot,” she whispered meekly. “My throat is sore.”

“That’s understandable, sweetie,” Mary Windham told her. “You were in the water for several hours. You’ve been sick for several days. I want you to take it easy.”

“I guess we won’t be working in the garden today,” Claire whispered and smiled.

“It will be a while before you are going to be up and around,” Mary Windham said.

Claire looked over at Meggie O’Hara and asked about her brothers.

“Robert, Eli and Samuel are doing fine,” she said. “Your mother has hired a woman to watch them so I could be here with you.”

“My mother?” Claire whispered. She called Mary Windham “momma” but she didn’t know if Meggie was comfortable with her mother-daughter relationship with another woman.

“This is where you belong,” Meggie O’Hara said. “This is where you’ve always belonged. I told Mrs. Windham that you were my gift to her. But in reality, you are her gift to me. I gave birth to Charlie. She’s the one who really gave birth to Claire.”

Claire was still a little confused, just as she was when she was with Emily during her — dream?

“There is a lot we’ve got to talk about,” Mary Windham said. “But right now you need to build up your strength.”

Two more familiar faces walked into the room with smiles on their faces — Mirilla and Myron. Mirilla carried tray with a nice hot bowl of soup and a glass of tea.

“It’s time for you to eat something Miss Claire,” Mirilla said.

Miss Claire? That was something it would take Claire some time to get used to.

“You don’t have to call me Miss Claire, Mirilla!” Claire said.

“Nonsence!” Myron said with a laugh. “Mirilla, I think little Miss Claire was in the water too long. Miss Claire, you and Madame are the ladies of the manor and will be addressed as such!”

“If you say so Myron,” Claire said with a laugh.

She dipped her spoon into the bowl and sipped the soup.

“Oh Mirilla, this is so wonderful,” she said as the soup soothed her throat. “You were all so very good to me!”

*****

Claire couldn’t believe all of the pampering she received. It was another week before she was well enough to leave the bed.

“You’re getting too used to Mirilla and Myron waiting on you hand and foot,” Mary Windham told her daughter. “Pretty soon you are going to have to learn how to do things yourself!”

Her mother wasn’t kidding. The first day she was well enough to leave the bed, she just stared at all of the clothes in her room — not Emily’s room as it was once known — until Mirilla came in.

“Need some help Miss Claire?” she asked.

“Oh Mirilla, I don’t know where to begin!” she said staring at all of the dresses and petticoats.

Before the night Charlie ran away from the O’Hara’s, Mirilla and momma had always picked out the clothes for Claire to wear. Mirilla always helped her dress.

“Well, you and Madame are going to be working in the garden today after breakfast,” she said, pulling out a work dress, bonnet and gloves.

Claire laughed.

“This was so much easier when I was a boy!” she told Mirilla.

“Do you wish you were Charlie again?” Mirilla asked.

“Absolutely not!” she said.

“Well, then you’re going to have to learn to dress as a lady,” Mirilla said. “But I’ll be here to help you. So will Helen and so will Madame.”

Claire appreciated the reassurance. She was learning how to do a lot of new things. It was a bit scary, but also so very exciting.

*****

“Did you get enough to eat?” Mary Windham asked Claire as they walked down the path to the garden.

“Oh momma, Mirilla can really cook,” Claire said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t very lady-like when I ate.”

Mary Windham laughed.

“I’d eaten like that too if I had been sick as long as you and only had soup the whole time,” she said. “We’ll work it off in the garden.”

Claire marveled at the gazebo once they reached the garden. She didn’t remember seeing it when she was with Emily during her dream. Or maybe she was so caught up with the dream she didn’t notice.

That is if the dream were really real. At least it seemed it seemed like it was real.

She thought about telling momma about the dream, but she didn’t know if the time was right.

“The gazebo looks really nice momma,” Claire said.

“The men did a really good job,” Mary Windham said. “It will be really nice for the Fourth of July celebration.”

While Claire didn’t think the time was right to tell her mother about the dream, Mary Windham felt the time was right to tell Claire about the night at the river.

She told her about Meggie O’Hara coming to the manor. She told her about sending out a search party.

“I think half of the town was out looking for you that night,” Mary Windham said. “I sent Myron and the rest of the men looking for you, but I just couldn’t stay here.”

Claire laughed when her mother told her about how she and Mirilla hitched the horses to the carriage. But Claire became serious when her mother told her about the rest of the events of that night.

Some of the men brought Meggie O’Hara and her little brothers to the manor. It was hard for Meggie to stay away.

“We were scared because we thought we might not see you again,” Mary Windham said.

She told Claire about the search in the woods.

“There were lanterns every where,” she said. “I saw Walter O’Hara and gave him a stern look. Then Mirilla and I went further down the river. I told Myron I wanted him and some of the men to rough him up and find someway to have him put in jail.”

“But he didn’t end up in jail?” Claire asked.

“No,” Mary Windham said. “I was very furious after what he had done to you and to Meggie. But I had pity on him. I don’t know why.”

Claire smiled.

“I would have wanted him put in jail, too,” she said. “But you’re a compassionate person. I hope to be that kind of woman when I grow up.”

Mary Windham gave her a hug.

“If I raise you to be that kind of woman, I will have done a good job,” she said. “But Meggie O’Hara has also done a very good job raising you already.”

She then continued her story. It took a very serious turn.

“Mirilla and I went a little further down the river than we intended to,” she said. “It was pitch black. We were further down river than of the searchers. There were no lanterns. We were about to turn around when I heard a girl weeping…I swear Claire…it sounded like…it sounded like…”

“Emily?” Claire asked.

“Yes!” Mary Windham said, stunned. “It sounded like Emily. How could you have known that?”

Claire shrugged, pleading ignorance, asked her mother to continue the story.

“I told Mirilla we needed to go toward the river. We lit a torch and walked through the woods to the riverbank. And there you were, lying on a log. You were clinging tightly even though you were unconscious. The log you were on was tangled with a fallen tree.”

I’m sending help. Those were the words Claire remembered hearing as she hung on to the log.

“Mirilla and I pulled you off the log,” Mary Windham said. “You were so cold. I thought you were dead, but then a felt a pulse. Charlie’s clothes were soaked. They clung to your body. Mirilla brought a knife and we cut them off your body. Mirilla threw the clothes back in the river while I wrapped you in the blankets we brought from the carriage.”

Mirilla drove the horses as hard as she could as they returned quickly to town.

“I held you and rocked you the whole time,” she continued. “We raced past the search area and the slums. I made the decision then not to tell anyone we found you.”

Reaching Windham Manor, Mary Windham cradled Claire in her arms.

“Mirilla was amazed at my strength,” she said. “I told her I lost one of my babies, I wasn’t going to lose another. I put you to bed. Myron was surprised when he came back from the search to find out we already had you hope. He sent for Doctor Blakely. He didn’t examine you fully, thank God. I told him you were Claire and that you became sick when we were searching for poor Charlie.”

Claire was shocked when she was told of the decision to have everyone believe Charlie drowned.

“It was Meggie’s and my decision,” Mary Windham said. “I told her we found you right after we put you to bed. We felt it was the only way to keep anyone from connecting you to Charlie. They found Charlie’s coat by the river the next day. The sheriff called off the search. They didn’t believe Charlie could have possibly survived. They don’t believe his body will ever be found.”

Claire was even more stunned to find out about the funeral.

“Who all knows?” Claire asked. “Meggie, Myron, Mirilla and Helen are the only ones who know besides me. No one else can ever know, that’s the hard part. That includes Robert, Samuel and Eli. When you visit Meggie, they are not to know that you were once Charlie. For the time being, she’ll visit you here at the manor. She doesn’t want the boys to see you until you’ve changed enough to fool them. They are too young to know what harm it could do if others found out.”

“I understand,” Claire said. “I love them and miss them deeply. But I understand.”