Widow's Tears Read online

  But as Cline stood in the open door, marveling at the eerie calm before him, part of the barrier suddenly gave way and the ocean poured through the gap. He was nearly lifted off his feet by a sudden rise in the level of the water, which in the space of four seconds rose an incredible four feet. He was up to his waist in salt water before he could pull in a deep breath. It was not a lashing wave but a gigantic swell, like some maddened Leviathan rushing toward the city: the “storm wave,” it was called then—the storm surge, meteorologists call it now, to distinguish it from the wind-driven hurricane waves. Calculating its height against the interior walls of his house, he saw that the water was now an unbelievable 15.2 feet deep on Q Avenue and still rising.

  As he ran up the stairs to the second floor of his house, he must have remembered that just nine years before, he had ridiculed hurricane fears as “an absurd delusion.” With a supremely arrogant hubris, he had written, “It would be impossible for any cyclone to create a storm wave which could materially injure the city.”

  Now, Isaac Cline’s city was being destroyed by the relentless, ruthless reality of his “absurd delusion,” at this moment making its mark on his dining room wall.

  * * *

  CLINE’S wasn’t the only proud boast being annihilated by the storm. Galveston thought of itself as the New York City of the Gulf, the equal of New Orleans, certainly, and perhaps even of San Francisco. It was the largest cotton port in the country and the third busiest of all.

  But on this terrible day, the city’s claims to fame were falling like ninepins. By mid-afternoon, the celebrated Pagoda Bath House, a Victorian frivolity, had been ripped apart by the waves, as had the Bath Avenue and Beach Street trestle that carried sightseers out over the surf. The three railroad bridges that linked the island and the mainland were underwater. And the longest two-lane wagon bridge in the United States was impassable. Galveston had been proud of its unique island location. Its vulnerability was now apparent to all.

  There was more to come. In late afternoon, the brick smokestack that towered over the Brush Electric Company powerhouse came down with a roar across the roof, crushing it and killing the men inside. At about the same time, the Celtic cross perched on the spire of Saint Patrick’s Church was blown down. (Saint Patrick’s, like John Sealy Hospital, the Ursuline Academy, and many other grand buildings in Galveston, was the work of architect Nicholas J. Clayton, who loved to execute his fanciful Gothic structures in brick—not the best choice for a hurricane-prone city.) At two hundred feet, the spire, topped by a massive gilded cross, was the tallest structure in the city. According to church records, the electrically illuminated cross was designed to be “the first and last object visible to mariners or travelers approaching Galveston Island from the deep blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico.” The shriek of the wind was so great that it blotted out the noise of its collapse. Nobody heard it fall.

  A half hour later, the Angelus rang out for the last time from the great bell at St. Mary’s Cathedral, the first church to be named a cathedral in the new state of Texas. To the rector, Father James M. Kirwin, the Angelus was “not like a salutation of praise but a warning of death and destruction.” Moments later, the cathedral towers began to sway ominously. The two-ton bell was ripped loose from its moorings and crashed to the floor. Gathered with the priests in the nave, the bishop of Galveston turned to the rector and said quietly, “Prepare these men for death.”

  Just before six thirty, the Weather Bureau’s anemometer atop the four-story Levy Building was blown away. Its last recorded wind speed: one hundred miles per hour. After that, there could be only estimates—120 miles per hour by contemporary reports; later estimates determined that the wind speeds must have reached Category Four on the Saffir-Simpson scale: 131-155 miles per hour. The first mate of the Comino, a British steamship tied up at Pier 14 on the west side of the island, noted that the barometric pressure had fallen to 28.30 inches and wrote in his log book. “Wind blowing terrific, and steamer bombarded with large pieces of timber, shells, and all manner of flying debris from the surrounding buildings.” A few moments later, a board four feet long and six inches wide was hurled like a huge javelin through the inch-thick iron plate of the Comino’s hull. And at the corner of Twenty-second Street and the Strand (known to proud Galvestonians as the “Wall Street of the Southwest”), the wind tore off the entire fourth floor of the W. L. Moody Building, as neatly, some said, as if a butcher had sliced it off with his cleaver.

  Nobody in Galveston could have told you how hard the wind blew that night. They just knew that no man could stand against it, and that the air was so thick with whirling debris and sword-sharp slates that to step outside was to face certain death.

  * * *

  AT the Blackwood house on Q Avenue, Rachel had given up all hope that Augustus would be able to make his way home before the storm ended. The howling wind was too fierce and the water, rushing up the street like a foam-flecked river in flood, too impossibly high. His absence was a hollow in her heart, but she was too busy—and too frightened—to dwell on it. She could only thank Providence that Colleen O’Reilly, for whatever reason, had come back. Until Rachel had heard Matthew’s shout and turned to see Colleen standing in the door, she had not known how desperate for help she was. It was only later that she would remember the sweet sympathy in the other woman’s eyes and wonder whether she had heard of Augustus’ death and could somehow see the terrible fate that waited for the rest of them.

  But that was to come. Their first order of business was to finish Matthew’s birthday party, with candles and a song and his present, a little army of painted tin soldiers, with extra-large pieces of chocolate cake for everyone. When they finished, Rachel proposed a new game. While they were waiting for their father to come home from the bank, they would have a parade up the stairs to the second floor. Each child could carry something important to the family—“just in case”—and when they had taken their precious burdens up the stairs, they could march down for something else. Mrs. O’Reilly volunteered to be “Parade Supervisor,” making sure that everyone had something to carry, and Patsy was sent upstairs to find safe places for all the items. Rachel, as “Music Master,” went to the Steinway to play some rousing Sousa marches—“The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Liberty Bell,” “The Washington Post”—while Angela sat in her little red rocking chair beside the piano, happily beating a spoon against a tin pan.

  Matthew was given the honor of carrying his father’s spare briefcase stuffed with papers. Ida carried the family’s silver forks, done up in a tea towel; Peter carried the spoons, and Paul the knives. On their second trip, Matthew had his father’s coin collection, Ida a piece of wedding crystal, and the twins brought the photograph albums. But while the children sang and shouted and marched and Rachel played as loudly as she could, their noise could not drown out the pounding of the rain and the rising shriek of the wind, like a hundred banshees howling around the house and down the chimneys.

  Of course, there could be no hope of saving the fine rugs and heavy furnishings—the Steinway piano, the mahogany dining table, Augustus’ walnut desk—although all over Galveston, people were trying to do just that. But several of Rachel’s favorite crystal pieces were paraded upstairs, and the lavishly engraved silver trays that had been wedding presents, and some of the Haviland china, as well as Augustus’ most precious books and the big globe from the library, where Matthew and his father spent long winter evenings tracing out the journeys of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Magellan and the lost Henry Hudson.

  Before long, though, it was clear that the parade would have to end. The water that had risen to the fifth gallery step while Rachel had been talking to Mr. Cline had reached the seventh step before Matthew blew out his candles. It was sweeping across the gallery as the parade got underway and beginning to flow under the front door as Rachel swung into the second march, “The Liberty Bell.”

  But they bravely kept on. When the water flooding across the main ha
llway was several inches deep, Mrs. O’Reilly clapped her hands and called out, in her rich Irish brogue, “Let’s all take our shoes off an’ play like we’re at the beach!”—which of course delighted the children, who were having too much fun to notice that the walls were shaking constantly now under the brutal cannon-like battering of the wind and that the ocean was rising inside their house.

  The parade continued for another little while, and on the last trip, Matthew carried little Angela in his arms. When all the children were upstairs, Mrs. O’Reilly appeared in the doorway of the music room. By this time, the water on the first floor of the house was knee-deep and still rising. Mrs. O’Reilly was barefoot, and her skirt—the one Rachel had loaned her—was tucked up into her waistband. She had an ax in each hand.

  Rachel stopped in the middle of “The Washington Post” and stared, her heart in her mouth. “Axes?” she whispered. “Whatever for?”

  “Chop holes in the floors,” Mrs. O’Reilly said in a matter-of-fact tone, holding out an ax. “I helped my mother do this in the Indianola hurricane. The water comin’ up through the holes will weigh down the house some—hold it on its foundation, maybe enough to keep it from gettin’ lifted up and pushed over.”

  Rachel got up from the piano and closed the lid carefully. She ran her hands over the smooth, shining wood one last time, then raised her voice. “Patsy,” she called, “please keep the children upstairs now. Tell them that Mrs. O’Reilly and I will bring the rest of the sandwiches and cake and we’ll all play another game.”

  “I think we’d best hurry,” Mrs. O’Reilly said urgently. “Might not be much time left.”

  “Thank you,” Rachel said, and reached for the ax. At that moment, with a splintering crash, the front gallery was ripped from the house.

  Upstairs, little Angela began to wail.

  Chapter Eleven

  Widow’s tears is a name shared by two plant cousins in the family Commelinaceae. These cousins also share another common name: dayflower. Both are beloved by bees and other pollinators; both are invasive.

  One of the plants called widow’s tears is found in the genus Commelina. Its showy flower is made up of two larger symmetrical petals above (usually blue—some people think they look like mouse ears) and a tiny white petal below. Around the world, Commelina is used as food, medicine, dyes, animal fodder, and in the production of paper.

  The other widow’s tears (also called spiderwort) belongs to the genus Tradescantia, a New World native named for the sixteenth-century English naturalist John Tradescant. The blossoms range from pale pink and lavender to purple, and usually have three symmetrical petals. Spiderworts have been used for both food and medicine.

  Widow’s tears flower in the morning and fade by day’s end. When you squeeze the bract that surrounds the flower stalk of a Commelina blossom, a drop of tear-like mucilaginous sap oozes out. Tradescantia flowers wilt into a fluid jelly. Some people are reminded of the tears of a truly grieving widow—or of a widow who is making a show of grief.

  In the language of flowers, widow’s tears represent grief.

  China Bayles

  “Herbs and Flowers That Tell a Story”

  Pecan Springs Enterprise

  Ruby’s car was parked beside the frame double garage, not far from the Rawlings’ cottage. Her phone in one hand, Ruby opened the door and slid onto the seat, then put her key in the ignition and turned it.

  Click.

  She turned it again, with the same result. And again. And again.

  “Rats,” she muttered, remembering that the car had behaved the same way—refusing to start—on the hill, at the same time she had seen the woman with the basket of flowers. Was there a connection?

  “Uh-oh,” Claire said softly, standing beside the car. “Sounds like a dead battery.”

  Ruby tried again, then gave it up and got out of the car. “I just replaced the battery a couple of months ago. I don’t think that’s the problem, Claire.”

  “Well, then, what is it?”

  Ruby looked over her shoulder. They were some distance away from the house. Seen from this angle, its odd angles and out-of-proportion, out-of-kilter hodgepodge of towers and turrets were once again apparent, silhouetted against the gathering of dark clouds, the color of bruised flesh, that filled the sky to the southeast. Somehow, the house seemed closer than it was, seemed almost to lean toward her, watchful and expectant. And sad, bitterly, hopelessly, desperately sad, as if it were built not of wood and stone and slate but of the wreckage of broken dreams.

  Ruby felt the gooseflesh break out on her arms. She shivered and turned back to Claire, trying to sound casual. “Let’s try your car.”

  “Sure,” Claire said, taking her keys out of the pocket of her jeans. “We can charge your phone first if you want, so you can text your message.” She headed toward the garage.

  But Claire’s car—a beat-up, old gray Ford Focus—wouldn’t start, either.

  “I don’t understand this at all,” Claire muttered. “It was running just fine two days ago when I went for groceries.” She looked up at Ruby, suddenly understanding. “Really, Ruby, it’s got to be the gh—”

  “Don’t say it,” Ruby interrupted grimly. “Just…don’t say it.”

  Claire tried several more times, then got out of the car. “Not saying it isn’t going to make it not true.” She was making an obvious effort to stay calm. “Something—the ghost or something else—doesn’t want us to use our phones. Or our cars.”

  Ruby frowned, thinking that if China were here, she’d suggest a more mundane and logical explanation. “It could be Sam Rawlings,” she said. “Maybe he jimmied a wire or something.”

  “But why?” Claire asked, closing the car door. “I mean, he no doubt has his reasons—sick or stupid or whatever—for beating up on his wife. But he has no reason at all to monkey with our cars. And anyway, Sam couldn’t be responsible for the phones not charging.” She shook her head ruefully. “Sorry. Afraid we’re back to the ghost. And I don’t know about you, but I’m more than a little nervous about being out here without a way to go for help, if we had to. The county road is seven miles away and the main road is farther than that. And none of these roads are high traffic. We could wait for hours and not see a single car.”

  Ruby didn’t like the idea of being isolated, either. And Claire was right about Sam Rawlings. He might have disabled the cars, but the cell phones were another matter entirely.

  The two of them had left the garage and were walking down the gravel path toward the Rawlings’ house. The place might have been nice once, and with a coat of paint and some shutters, it could be nice again. But the front yard was full of ragged weeds, and the window blinds were drawn down to the sills, giving the house a lonely, dispirited look. A junked riding mower, minus its wheels, crouched in the dirt. From the direction of the chicken coop came the sound of a hen cackling, celebrating the laying of another egg. Not far from the fenced coop was a garden. A row of hollyhocks was blooming along the fence—the only cheerful thing in sight.

  Claire cast a disgusted look at the house. “When the Rawlingses get back, I’m going to tell them they’ve got to do some cleaning up before I put any money into paint and repair. This place is a mess.” She sighed. “But I really think you’re right about getting Mr. Hoover to fire Sam, Ruby. It seems like the best thing to do—for me, at least. For Kitty, it’ll probably be a different story. Getting fired is likely to make Sam’s problems even worse, and he’ll take out his frustrations on her. He might not find another job right away, either. Mr. Hoover can give him a recommendation if he wants to, but not me. Not after the way he’s treated his wife.”

  At this point, the path forked, one branch curving back to the Rawlingses’ house, the other heading up the hill toward the woodland. Claire gestured in that direction. “If we’re going to the cemetery, that’s the path we need to take. You can see the iron gate from here. That’s where I saw the ghost that morning, with her basket of flowers.”
/>   Ruby cleared her throat. “I guess maybe it’s time we gave her a name. ‘The ghost’ seems a bit too generic.” She glanced at Claire. “We know for a fact that she isn’t your great-aunt Hazel. Right?”

  Claire nodded. “Right. She couldn’t be, because the first time you saw her, Aunt Hazel was still alive. She wouldn’t be dead for another twenty or twenty-five years. Old Mrs. Blackwood is the only other person who has ever lived in this house—at least, so far as I know. Unless we find out differently, we could call her Mrs. Blackwood.” She smiled wanly. “If that’s wrong, maybe she’ll tell us who she is.”

  They were walking up the path now, away from the house, toward the cemetery. Ruby thought about ghosts for a minute, wishing she knew more about them. Were there general rules for the way they behaved? Or did every ghost—or spirit, or entity, or manifestation, whatever it was called—make its own rules to fit the situation in which it found itself? What about appearance, for example?

  “You said that Mrs. Blackwood was in her nineties when she died,” Ruby said. “But the woman we’ve seen is much younger. I couldn’t see her face, but I’d guess her to be in her thirties. If she’s the ghost or the spirit or whatever of old Mrs. Blackwood, you’d think she’d be stooped and walk with a cane and her hair would be white, not dark. This one goes around looking like a Gibson Girl.”

  “True,” Claire said thoughtfully. “Judging from her clothing—the big sleeves of that blouse and the length of that skirt—I’d say early 1900s, wouldn’t you? Maybe even the 1890s.”

  Ruby nodded. “And I’m wondering why she’s making all this fuss now—the appearances, the harp, the pans in the kitchen, all that stuff. Is there a reason for it, or is it just something she likes doing?”