Hope Between the Pages, Pepper Basham [best ebook reader android .txt] 📗

sure if Sadie bore a child or not, but the date concurs with her time here. Her marriage with Oliver.” Her gaze explored my face. “You are family, Clara Blackwell. Our family.” A light laugh burst from her. “Oh, my mother would have loved to have known about you.”

Clara had an entire family in England she’d never known about. Cousins, aunts, uncles…her small world as an only child of two practically only children swelled astronomically. Uncle Julian and Robbie had been the only family Clara had ever known. Now she waited on the brink of discovering the answers to a century of unanswered questions.

“What do you know of Oliver and Sadie?”

“Not much.” Clara shrugged. “Oliver and Sadie met at Biltmore in late summer 1915 and developed some sort of romantic attachment.” She waved toward Mrs. Wilson. “Marriage sometime in early 1916. But Olivier died in March 1916, and Granny Sadie moved back to the States soon after.”

“Your deduction about Sadie and Oliver meeting at Biltmore is true. It appears Oliver tended toward stepping outside of protocol.” Mrs. Wilson’s smile deepened the wrinkles on her face. “Making friends with the servants, joining in town parties, having dreams of keeping a quiet life in the country tending his own chickens, and nursing a dream of a simple life.”

“And all this time, your mother knew their story, Mrs. Wilson?”

“No Mrs. Wilson among family, my dear. You must call me Maggie.” She tsked. “And, yes, my mother divulged the story when I became interested in genealogy about twenty years ago. She’d never mentioned Sadie before, because, you see, her mother, Caroline Camden, fell into a disabling depression after both Oliver and Robert died in the war. Not that she’d impacted my mother’s life a great deal. She’d been mostly involved in her social world and the like. Three years after her death, Grandfather remarried a woman who had as generous a nature as one could ever possess. Sadie’s story disappeared beneath the joy and expectations of Mother’s new family, for soon she had another brother and sister.”

Clara smiled even as her eyes stung. “I’m glad she healed.”

“Yes, but she didn’t forget. When I began asking her questions, she unfolded the story of her dearest brother’s life, and since she had kept a diary almost religiously from the time she was seven, she had a record of her memories.”

“Sadie was in her diary?” Clara barely realized that Esme left a cup of tea on the table beside her, her focus was so much on her…cousin Maggie.

“Oh yes, we know the story up until Sadie left her life in England, which is where you’ll help finish the story. My mother, Vicky, loved your great-grandmother. Even as a young child who didn’t fully understand the ways of the world, she knew something was special about Sadie, something Oliver seemed to see as well.”

Clara sniffled and took the cup into hand, the contents warming her cold palms. Her mind swirled with too many thoughts to even catch one.

“It seems that Oliver fell in love with your grandmother almost instantly. Evidently, he pursued Sadie until she surrendered to his charms. Mother said he was always devastatingly charming.”

Clara grinned despite her blurry vision. “Of the few notes I’ve seen from him, I’d agree.”

“After he returned to England, they exchanged letters until he sent for her, at which time they married.”

Married. The answer after all this time. But why didn’t she take Oliver’s name? Why leave the parentage of her son a mystery?

“Oh, but I’ve run ahead. Let me introduce you to a few people you may have never seen.” Maggie reached for a few photos on the table. “This is Victoria and Oliver on the ship to America, where they stayed at Biltmore.”

Clara blinked away the tears and took the proffered photograph. Her attention immediately moved to the young man in the photo. Tall and lean with a brilliant smile. The pair both had light hair and pale eyes. Could they have been pale blue? Like hers? Her lips responded to his smile as if he looked through the years and saw her. What a strange feeling!

“He’s so handsome.”

“Isn’t he?” She nodded at the photo. “Dashing, I’d say, and from Mother’s accounts, he was the light of her life. Read to her, danced with her, spent time with her when it wasn’t a usual expectation of older brothers of their social status.”

Clara could almost feel his smile through the photo, so vibrant. She moved her attention to the little girl with pale curls spilling around her shoulders. She had her face upturned, grinning up at her brother with clear adoration on her young face. This man was Clara’s great-grandfather?

Clara raised her gaze to Maggie, searching her face. “What happened?”

“Here are my grandparents, Heathcliff and Caroline.” She pushed another photo forward. “They play an integral role in the story.”

Oliver looked a lot like his father. Same build, eyes, and smile, though Mr. Camden’s shone with more subtlety. Mrs. Camden stared at the camera, emotionless. Her darker hair disappeared beneath a magnificent hat, and her tall figure was accentuated by the fit of her gown.

“Sadie and Oliver lived in the gatehouse after they married. He’d taken on the expense to have it refurbished to offer to his young bride so that they could live separate from his mother. He planned to find them a more suitable home once he returned from war. He thought this would keep Sadie close enough to assistance, if she needed it, but not too close to Grandmother Camden.”

“How long were they together before he left for war?” Clara brought her cup to her lips.

“According to Mother’s diary, about three weeks passed from the time of their wedding to Oliver’s departure.”

“Only three weeks?” Clara whispered, glancing back at Oliver’s photo. Others of him littered the table. Some with his parents or Victoria, a few by himself with a large hound or on horseback, but in almost every one, he wore a smile Clara felt.

“Yes, such a short time.