Whispering Hearts Read online

  Most of the time during the next few days, Dr. Davenport was home. He kept himself in his office with the doors closed. I brought Ryder in to see him whenever I could, and I suspected it was practically the only time he smiled. Mrs. Marlene brought him his meals. I had mine with Mr. Stark and Mrs. Marlene. I was beginning to feel more like another servant, but I didn’t mind it. These people were, after all, my American family.

  Samantha’s funeral was difficult, not only because we were burying her, someone who had everything to live for, but because it was one of the most bitterly cold days on record. A surprising number of people came to the cemetery after the service. Many, I was told, were either Dr. Davenport’s patients or family of one of his patients. When I looked around at the mourners, I saw their breaths puffing like smoke. No one dared utter a complaint. All were alive, after all, imagining that Samantha would have gladly endured a dozen days like this in a row if it meant she could live on to see her son grow up.

  When it was over, we returned to Wyndemere, where Mrs. Marlene and some rented help prepared food for those who wanted to continue to offer Dr. Davenport comfort. A few who had met me before and remembered the cover story remarked how terrible I must feel having come to Wyndemere on what were now two very sad occasions. Most everyone saw how I was caring for Ryder during the time he was up and about, and the story line was embellished with the revelation that I would be staying to help care for him for a while at least.

  I fed him and put him to bed. By the time I returned to the grand room, most of the mourners had left. Dr. Davenport, a man who had attended the funerals of some of his patients, looked like he was there to comfort others. His lips never trembled; his eyes remained clear and his voice steady. Other people cried around him, but Dr. Bliskin moved them off as quickly as he could, as if he were there to protect his friend.

  After everyone left, Dr. Davenport went up to his mother for a while and then to bed. Before he did, however, he asked me to do something that at first actually made me shiver.

  “I’d feel more at ease if you would move to Samantha’s bedroom, because it’s right beside the nursery. Would you do that? Mrs. Cohen and the other nurse both have their hands full with my mother. Despite how she could be, she liked Samantha. She once told me that she imagined my little sister would be something like her. My little sister…” he said, his voice drifting off.

  He had drunk far more than I had ever seen him drink, and he looked exhausted from that and from containing his sorrow. Inside, his body was surely overflowing with the hidden tears. His face was red from the alcohol he had consumed, but his eyes were darkened with the pain. He waited for my response.

  “Of course, if that’s what you think best, Dr. Davenport.”

  He nodded, his eyes fixed on me. He turned to walk away, paused, and turned back. “I think I’d be more comfortable now with you calling me Harrison. Samantha was practically the only one left in Wyndemere who did. Even my mother calls me Dr. Davenport sometimes. Lately, more than ever,” he added. He closed and opened his eyes.

  “If that’s what you wish, of course,” I said.

  He took my hand for a second or two and then went to the stairway. Mrs. Marlene stepped up beside me, and both of us watched him going up, looking like a man twice his age climbing a mountain. Surely, in his mind, he was, I thought.

  Mrs. Marlene and I hugged each other. I told her what Dr. Davenport had asked me to do.

  She didn’t look surprised. “He’s not a man who’s used to asking anyone for a favor. It’s almost always the other way around. It’s kind of you to do what you can to give him some comfort.”

  “Honestly,” I said, “I think I’m doing it to comfort myself, keep myself from believing she’s not here.”

  She smiled. “I’m having the same trouble. You wear her perfume, and the aroma lingers in the air, causing me to imagine she has just passed through this room or that.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s all right. I’m not afraid to remember.”

  We said good night, and I made my way up the stairs. I gathered what I needed from my room and stepped into Samantha’s. It had been prepared the way it always was, everything neatly organized, the bedding crisp and clean, and the curtains drawn closed. She once told me that she didn’t want to be woken by sunlight abruptly. She would smoothly step out of sleep, and then, “as if I controlled day and night, I open my curtains and give the sun permission to be there. You may enter now, Mr. Sun.”

  She giggled after saying things like that, but I loved hearing them. For a while, we were truly more like little girls growing up together in Wyndemere. And then, after I became pregnant, we were both forced to be mature and responsible. Maybe that was the real reason she wanted a surrogate to carry her child: she never wanted to give up her own childhood. Harrison Davenport certainly did whatever he could to keep her safely ensconced in that world of baubles, bangles, and beads. Living and working beside death for most of his day, it was surely an escape to come through the magnificent, castle-like entrance of Wyndemere and find his princess waiting to wash away any remnants of the darkness he had traveled in outside.

  Now it had come in, and he had only the darkness now, and I think I went to bed crying over that as much as the loss of Samantha herself.

  A baby monitor was beside Samantha’s bed. It was what woke me early in the morning the first night I slept in her room. I went to Ryder immediately, and then, like she often did, I brought him back to her bedroom. When I was nursing him regularly, she’d call me to her room and lie beside me while I nursed him. Now he was on his bottle, and again, as she always did, I watched him feed, his eyes on me as if he was looking for approval, as if he knew he had gone elsewhere for his nourishment and wanted to be sure I wasn’t upset.

  Afterward, we both fell back to sleep. I wasn’t sure if I had dreamed it or not, but I thought Dr. Davenport had opened the bedroom door and stood at the foot of the bed for a while. When I did wake up, he wasn’t there, of course. Ryder was still sleeping. I washed up, dressed for breakfast, and carried him down with me.

  “He was up before I arrived this morning,” Mrs. Marlene said. “Parker was taking him off when I pulled in. George told me he had insisted on going to his office.”

  “Maybe that is best,” I said.

  “How long do you think you will stay?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t given that much thought. Every time I start to, I feel terribly selfish.”

  She gave me a sympathetic look. “You’ve got to think of your future, too, not that I don’t dread the day you walk out of here.”

  Ryder looked at both of us, suspicion in his eyes.

  Mrs. Marlene laughed first, and then I did.

  It sounded like the crack in a sheet of ice.

  Just a little bit of light came pouring through.

  As long as I had Ryder to occupy me, I would be able to hold together, I thought. It was those quiet moments alone that would be devastating.

  How could I live through those?

  EPILOGUE

  The first time it happened, at the start, I thought I was having a dream. I would never deny to myself that I had fantasized it more than once. Franklin had told me that Harrison was at the hospital, but confining himself to administrative work, and he had not agreed to take on any new patients or surgeries. He came home at dinner to spend time with Ryder and then retreated almost immediately afterward to his office.

  One night, when he came into the dining room, I decided to take the seat Samantha always took. Samantha and I used to sit on both sides of Ryder in his high chair, she always on his right, which was on Dr. Davenport’s left. It felt right to me, right for Ryder, and right for Dr. Davenport. He smiled, but neither of us said anything about it.

  Mrs. Marlene paused at the kitchen door. I glanced at her. She looked a little frightened but nodded. I liked that she approved.

  I thought about the questions Samantha would ask Dr. Davenport at dinner and t
oyed with them in my mind. He hadn’t been very talkative during the week, but I didn’t expect he would be.

  “Are you very busy?” I asked.

  The way he looked at me suggested he wasn’t going to answer, but he did. “I’ve put most everything on hold for a while. I’m catching up on reports, new research, and the like.”

  I nodded and continued to feed Ryder. Later that night, he looked in on me in the library. I could see that he had been drinking again or, actually, still. It was the way he was putting himself to sleep these nights.

  “I should talk to you about your future,” he said. “Please forgive me.”

  “I’m fine. Let’s give it a while,” I said, which obviously pleased him.

  “Are you rereading that or reading it for the first time?” he asked, nodding at the copy of Rebecca in my hands. Samantha hadn’t quite finished it. I had the feeling I was finishing it for her.

  “Rereading. I’ve forgotten so much.”

  “When something is good, it shouldn’t be forgotten.” He stood there. I didn’t know whether I should invite him to sit with me. “One of these days, we’ll have you sing for us again… I have to look in on my mother. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  I put the novel down after he left and sat there thinking.

  Was it good that I had remained, or did I keep Samantha’s death fresh in his mind simply by being here? We had been inseparable, after all. In the beginning, it was because of her concerns about my surrogacy, and then, as time passed and we talked more, a real affection was built between us. It was more of a friendship while I was nursing. I imagined that every time he saw me enter a room or come down the stairs, he was still anticipating Samantha would follow or be beside me.

  But every time I gave serious consideration to leaving and returning to my life, my ambitions, I felt waves of guilt. How could I be so selfish? At least stay long enough for him to get through it. It would also be quite traumatic for Ryder to suddenly lose both of us. Or… was I thinking more of myself?

  Julia would pounce if she knew all this. She would blame me for getting myself entangled in the Davenports’ lives. I would have trouble defending myself. Ironically, she would be telling me that I had placed too much importance on money, something we both thought was true about our father.

  Being a father was still very important to Dr. Davenport, but it was difficult for him. He truly enjoyed seeing Ryder and took delight in every little advancement he made, whether it was simply moving about more gracefully or learning what things were and pronouncing new words. Every smile on Dr. Davenport’s face was instantly accompanied by a sign of sorrow. It manifested itself in his eyes. She wasn’t there to share the joy. Almost always, he would glance at her portrait. If only I could fill that void, I thought.

  Everyone noticed Dr. Davenport’s drinking, but no one would dare say a word. Franklin was aware of it and visited as often as he could. His efforts were yet to have a significant effect. Night after night, I heard Dr. Davenport lumbering his way up the stairs to his room. A few times, I thought he had turned in Ryder’s and my direction. I listened harder but heard nothing and fell asleep.

  Then it happened.

  I never heard my bedroom door open. I never heard him step up to my bed. He was naked.

  “Samantha,” he said. “Samantha.”

  God forgive me, but I said, “Yes, my darling.”

  More from the Author

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  One of the most popular authors of all time, V.C. ANDREWS® has been a bestselling phenomenon since the publication of Flowers in the Attic, first in the renowned Dollanganger family series, which includes Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and Garden of Shadows. The family saga continues with Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth, Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger, and Secret Brother, as well as Beneath the Attic, Out of the Attic, and Shadows of Foxworth as part of the fortieth anniversary celebration. There are more than eighty V.C. Andrews novels, which have sold over 107 million copies worldwide and have been translated into more than twenty-five foreign languages.

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  V.C. Andrews® Books

  The Dollanganger Family

  Flowers in the Attic

  Petals on the Wind

  If There Be Thorns

  Seeds of Yesterday

  Garden of Shadows

  Christopher’s Diary: Secrets of Foxworth

  Christopher’s Diary: Echoes of Dollanganger

  Secret Brother

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  Out of the Attic

  Shadows of Foxworth

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  Fallen Hearts

  Gates of Paradise

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Dreams

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  Capturing Angels

  The Unwelcomed Child

  Sage’s Eyes

  The Silhouette Girl

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  Following the death of Virginia Andrews, the Andrews family worked with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews’s stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.