by Nora Roberts
“I know I love my brother, though he is a regular pain in my ass. Life has some awfully screwy angles.” Faith laid Dwight’s money down, took out her credit card. “You close up at six, don’t you?”
“That’s right.”
“Why don’t you meet me after work? We’ll have us a drink.”
“All right. Where?”
Faith’s eyes glittered. “Oh, I think Hope Memorial would be appropriate.”
“I’m sorry?”
“In the swamp, you know where.”
“For God’s sake, Faith.”
“Haven’t been there yet, have you? Well, it’s time, I’d say, and it strikes me as a good spot to see if you and I turn a corner. Got the belly for it?”
Tory snapped up the credit card. “I do if you do.”
She hauled groceries home, and met Lilah’s complaint about her late arrival with just enough bitchiness at being given the chore in the first place to satisfy them both.
“And don’t start yapping that the tomatoes are too soft or the bananas too green, or next time I won’t be your errand girl.”
“You eat, don’t you? Don’t do another damn thing around here I can see, so you can haul the food in once in a blue moon.”
“The moon turns blue around here more than it used to.” Faith got out the iced tea, two glasses, then settled down to relay the gossip.
“So.” Lilah sat down, shifted comfortably. “What are they saying?”
“All manner of things, most of which are as far-fetched as a liberal Republican. Lot of people are saying it must’ve been an old boyfriend or a lover. A new, married lover. But I ran into Maxine in produce, and it turns out she was friends with Sherry, and she says Sherry didn’t have a boyfriend just now.”
“Don’t mean some idiot man didn’t think he should be.” Lilah took out her lipstick, twirling the tube up and down. “I heard she let him in though, ‘cause her dog didn’t send up a racket and there wasn’t no break-in like people thought at first.”
“Letting a man into your house doesn’t mean you want him to rape you.”
“Didn’t say so.” Lilah colored her lips, rubbed them together. “Just saying a woman’s got to be careful. You open a door for a man, you better be ready to boot his ass right back out again.”
“You’re such a romantic, Lilah.”
“I got plenty of romance in me, Miss Faith. I just balance it with good hard sense. Something you’re missing when it comes to men. Maybe that poor girl was missing it, too.”
“I’ve been sensible enough to kick plenty of them out on their ass.”
“Had to go and marry two of them first, though, didn’t you?”
Faith took out a cigarette, smiled blandly. “I could have married more than two. Least I’m not a spinster.”
Lilah met the smile equably. “Marriage was all it’s cracked up to be, it’d last longer. That girl, she didn’t have an ex-husband, did she?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Faith?” Margaret stood in the doorway, her face rigid. “I need to speak with you. In the parlor.”
“All right.” Faith rolled her eyes at Lilah, crushed out her cigarette. “I should’ve found more to do in town.”
“You show your mama some respect.”
“It would certainly be a shock to the system if she did the same for me.”
She took her time wandering to the parlor. Stopped once to check her manicure, another to smooth her hair in the hall mirror. When she walked in, her mother was sitting, stiff as dry plaster.
“I don’t approve of you gossiping with the servants.”
“I wasn’t. I was gossiping with Lilah.”
“Don’t take that tone with me. Lilah may be a valued member of this household, but it’s inappropriate for you to sit in the kitchen and gossip.”
“Is it appropriate for you to eavesdrop?” Faith slumped into a chair. “I’m twenty-six years old, Mama. It’s a long time since it would do you a lick of good to lecture me on behavior.”
“It never did any good. I’m told that you were with Victoria Bodeen yesterday. That you were together and were responsible for contacting the police.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s distressing enough that you have any connection with a situation as unseemly as this, but it’s intolerable that you are now linked with that woman.”
“That woman being Tory rather than the one who was raped and murdered?” Faith’s spine stiffened, but she remained lazily slumped.
“I will not have it. I will not have you associating with Victoria Bodeen.”
“Or?” Faith waited a beat. “You see, there aren’t any or’s at this point in our lives, Mama. I come and go when I please and with whom. I always did, but now you really have nothing to say about it.”
“I would think out of respect for your sister you would sever any connection, however tenuous it is, with the person I hold responsible for her death.”
“Maybe it’s out of respect for my sister that I’ve made this connection. You never could stand her,” Faith said conversationally. “I took your lead there, I suppose. You would have forbidden Hope to associate with her, but you could never really bring yourself to forbid Hope anything. And if you did, she got around you. She was infinitely more clever than I in that area.”
“Don’t speak of my daughter in that manner.”
“Yes, your daughter.” Now the brittle tone reflected in her eyes. “Something I never quite managed to be. Here’s something you may never have considered. Tory isn’t responsible for what happened to Hope, but she may very well be the key to it. It might bring you comfort to remember Hope as a bright light, as a life cut off before it really lived. It would bring me more comfort to finally know why. And know who.”
“You won’t find your comfort, or your answers, with that woman. You’ll only find lies. Her whole life is a lie.”
“Well then.” With a bright smile, Faith got to her feet. “Just gives us one more thing in common, doesn’t it?”
She walked away, putting a swagger in her step.
Margaret got immediately to her feet, walked quickly out and into the library with its towers of books and ornately plastered ceiling. She made the call first, tugging on the strings of friendship to request that Gerald Purcell come to her as soon as possible.
Assured he would make the trip within the hour, she walked to the safe secreted behind an oil painting of Beaux Reves and took out two folders.
She would use the hour to study the paperwork and prepare.
Shortly, she ordered tea to be served on the south terrace, along with scones and the frosted cakes she knew Gerald had a weakness for. She enjoyed the ritual in the afternoons when she was at home, the china, the silver, the precisely cut wedges of lemon, the mix of brown and white sugar cubes in the bowl.
As long as she was mistress of this house, she thought, it was a ritual that would be preserved. Beaux Reves, and all it stood for, would be preserved.
It was warm for tea alfresco, but the white umbrella offered shade, and the gardens provided what Margaret considered the appropriate backdrop. The tree roses that flanked the brick in their giant white pots were heavy with bloom, and her hibiscus added an exotic touch with their crimson trumpets.
She sat at the rippled glass table, hands folded, and looked out over what was hers. She had worked for it, nurtured it, and now, as always, she would protect it.
She glanced over as Gerald came through the terrace doors. He’d roast in the suit and tie, she thought idly, as she lifted a hand to his.
“I appreciate your coming so quickly. You’ll have some tea?”
“That would be lovely. You sounded troubled, Margaret.”
“I am troubled.” But her hand was rock steady as she lifted the Wedgwood teapot and poured. “It concerns my children, and Beaux Reves itself. You were Jasper’s attorney, so you understand the disposition of the farm, the properties, the interests of this family, as well
as any of us. Better perhaps.”
“Of course.” He sat beside her, pleased that she remembered he preferred lemon to milk.
“Controlling interest in the farm was passed to Kincade. Seventy percent. That holds true for the factories, the mill as well. I hold twenty percent, and Faith ten.”
“That’s correct. The profits are divided and dispersed annually.”
“I’m aware of that. The properties, such as our interest in the apartment buildings, the houses that are rented, including the Marsh House, are in all three names, equally. Is that also correct?”
“Yes.”
“And, in your opinion, what impact would it have on Cade’s changes to the farm, his new operating system, if I withdrew my support, used my twenty percent and my influence with the board to sway them back toward more traditional methods.”
“It would cause him considerable difficulty, Margaret. But his weight is heavier than yours, and the profits add to his end of the scale. The board has no say in the farm in any case, just the mill and the factories.”
She nodded. “And the mill, the factories, help keep the farm running. If I were able to persuade Faith to add her interest to mine?”
“That would give you more ammunition, certainly.” He sipped his tea, pondered. “Might I ask, as your friend and your lawyer, if you’re dissatisfied with Cade’s performance at Beaux Reves?”
“I am dissatisfied with my son, and I believe he needs to put his mind and energies back into his inheritance without having it diverted into less worthy channels. Simply,” she said, as she buttered a scone, “I want Victoria Bodeen out of the Marsh House, out of Progress. At the moment Faith is being difficult, but she will come around. She’s always been a creature of the moment. I believe I can persuade her to sell me her interest in the properties. That would give me a two-thirds control. I would assume that the Bodeen girl has a year’s lease on the house, and on the building on Market. I want those leases broken.”
“Margaret.” He patted her hand. “You would be wise to let this lay.”
“I will not tolerate her association with my son. I will do whatever is necessary to end it. I want you to draw up a new will for me, cutting both Cade and Faith off.”
He thought of the scandal, the legal tangles, the vicious amount of work. “Margaret, please don’t be rash.”
“I won’t implement the will unless I have no choice, but I will use it to show Faith just how serious I am.” Margaret’s mouth thinned. “I have no doubt that when she realizes she stands to lose such a large sum of money, she will become very cooperative. I want my house back in order, Gerald. It would be a great favor to me if you looked over those leases and found the simplest way to break them.”
“You risk turning your son against you.”
“Better that than watching him drag down the family name.”
24
I have not, since childhood, kept a diary or a journal, or written down my secret thoughts. It seems appropriate, since my childhood is so on my mind, to do so now. And to do so here, where Hope lost her life. Her childhood.
My papa, our papa, made this place for her with its pretty statue and its sweet-smelling flowers. It is more hers than the grave where he buried her on that steamy and sick-skied summer morning. I never shared this place with her. I chose not to, out of spite, certainly, but it gave me great satisfaction at the time.
What did I want with her silly games and her odd and unkempt friend?
I wanted them so desperately I refused to take them when they were offered. I am a difficult person. Sometimes I like myself that way. In any case, it is my nature to be contrary, so I of all people must live with it.
It might have been different for me, for all of us, if that night had never happened. If when I’d awoken in the morning, Hope had been in the next room. I would still have been sulking over my disgrace the night before. That had been a minor combat over peas, which I despised then and despise now.
I would have sulked because I found some pleasure in that activity, particularly when someone put in the effort to win me out of my pouts. I enjoyed the attention. Most any kind of attention I could manage.
I knew, even then, that in the pecking order of siblings, I came in a lowly third out of three. Cade was the heir apparent. He, after all, possessed a penis, and I did not. This, I suppose, was no fault of his, but I did indeed envy him that member for a short time in my youth. Until, of course, I learned that it was more than possible for a woman to possess as many of those interesting appendages as she liked, and in such a pleasant variety of ways.
I discovered sex early, and have enjoyed it without apology.
In any case, at eight, the sexual connotations of men and women were still a foggy area for me. I only knew that Cade was the master-in-training of Beaux Reves because he was a boy, and this did not sit well with me. He was afforded privileges I was denied, again because of his gender. And, I suppose to be fair, the four-year difference in our ages.
My father looked on him with such pride. Certainly he demanded quite a bit from Cade, but the look in Papa’s eyes, the tone of his voice, the very posture of his body, was a study in pride. Father for son. I could never be his son.
Nor could I be, as Hope was, his angel. He adored her. He had love for me, and he was a fair man. But it was painfully obvious that it was Hope who held his heart even as Cade held, well, his hopes. I was a kind of bonus, I imagine, the twin who came in tow with his angel.
With my mother Cade was also, I think, a source of pride. She had produced the son, as was expected of her. The Lavelle name would carry on because she had conceived and birthed a male. She was happy enough to give the dealing with him over to my father for the most part. What did she know of boys, after all? I wonder if Cade felt this smooth and easy distance. I imagine he did, but somehow he became a whole and admirable man despite it.
Because of it?
Naturally, Mama schooled him in manners, saw to his cleanliness, but his education, his time, his lot in life were my father’s bailiwick. I don’t remember ever hearing her question Papa about Cade.
Hope was her reward for a job well done. The daughter she could polish and mold, the child she would see from babyhood through to a proper marriage. She loved Hope for her sweetness and her quiet acquiescence. And she never saw, never, the rebel inside. Had Hope lived, I believe she would have done precisely what she pleased, and somehow have convinced Mama it was Mama’s own idea.
She got around her with Tory. She could get around her with anything.
God, I miss her. I miss that half of me that was bright and fun and eager. I miss her outrageously.
Myself I was a trial to Mama. How often I have heard her say so, therefore it must be true. I had none of Hope’s sweetness, nor her quiet acquiescence. I questioned, and I fought bitterly over things I didn’t even care about.
Notice me. Damn you all. Notice me.
How sad and pitiful.
Hope became friends with Tory a year before that summer. They were simply drawn together as some souls are. Even I could see the recognition between them, that click of connection. And they were, almost from the first, inseparable. More twins than my sister and I had ever been.
For that reason alone I disliked Victoria Bodeen intensely. I turned my nose up at her and her dirty feet and poor grammar, at her big watchful eyes and white-trash parents. But it was her closeness with Hope that was at the root of it.
I made fun of her as often as I possibly could, and ignored her the rest of the time. Pretended to ignore her. In fact, I watched her and Hope with hawklike concentration. Looking for a fissure, for some crack in their bond that I could pry wider so that their affection for each other shattered.
They played together on the day she died, at our house, as Hope was strictly forbidden to go to Tory’s. She did so, of course, in secret, but they spent most of their time together in and around Beaux Reves, or in the swamp.
Mama didn’t know about the swamp.
She would not have approved. But we all wandered there, played there. Papa knew it, and only asked that we not go in after dark.
Before supper Hope played jacks on the veranda. I was punishing her by not playing with her. When this didn’t appear to spoil her pleasure in the game, I went to my room to sulk and didn’t come down until I was called to supper.
I wasn’t hungry, and I was still in a vile mood over Hope’s blithe acceptance of my anger with her. I took it out on myself by making an issue of the peas—though I continue to contend I had a right there—then ended up sassing my mother and being sent from the table.
I hated being sent from the table. Not that I cared overmuch about the food, but it was banishment. I imagine a therapist would say that this tactic proved to me that I was not a part of the family as my brother and sister were. I was the outsider who on one hand reveled in my independence of them, and on the other wanted desperately to be part of the picture.
I went to my room, as if that’s where I wanted to be in the first place. I was determined they would think so and not suspect that I was as mortified as I was angry.
A small hill of peas was more important than I was.
I laid on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and surrounded myself with resentment. One day, I thought, one day I would be free to do as I liked, when I liked. No one would stop me, least of all the family who so easily dismissed me. I would be rich and famous and beautiful. I had no clear idea how I would accomplish these things, but they were my goal. I saw money and glory and beauty as a kind of prize I would win while the rest of them stayed steeped in the traditions and the restrictions of Beaux Reves.
I considered running away, perhaps landing on my aunt Rosie’s doorstep. That, I knew, would hit my mother where she lived as she considered her sister Rosie nothing more than an embarrassment. Somewhat like me.
But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted them to love me, and that urgent and frustrated desire was my prison.
Later on I heard my mother’s music. She would have been in her sitting room, writing letters, answering invitations, planning the next day’s menus, schedules, and whatever else she did as mistress of the house. My father would have been in his tower office, seeing to the business of the farm, and having a quiet glass of bourbon.