by Carole King
“All I can say, dear Vanessa, is that without prior invitation, I shall not expect you to put me up. But I must add that I’ve not yet procured accommodation in town and you know how crowded are the hotels this time of year. Actually, my bags are still out in the coach, and although I wouldn’t think of intruding on your hospitality, I should much rather stay here than in some nasty, cramped hotel room, with heaven knows what sort as neighbors. There are any number of foreigners about, don’t you know—Irish, French, and not a few Italians,” she said, her eyes narrowing in disapproval.
“I daresay, Antoinette,” said Vanessa impatiently, “we are all fundamentally foreigners. In any event we could not think of imposing an invitation on you—”
“The other consideration would be, I suppose, how . . . odd it might seem if I were to install myself in a hotel.” She glanced at her audience triumphantly. “Mightn’t that cause a bit of unwelcome speculation—and gossip? Now wouldn’t that give the hoi polloi something to flap about?” Autumn stood suddenly, more to stop Antoinette’s babbling than anything.
“Why don’t we get you settled, Antoinette,” she offered quietly.
“And when will I see Cain?”
“He will be in for supper.”
Antoinette smiled thinly. Without further comment and with a playful waggle of her fingers in Vanessa’s direction, she followed Autumn into the house.
For the evening meal, Antoinette appeared in a gown of candy apple red with black fringe layered at the deep bodice and hem. Her hair was piled almost unimaginably high, and wound among the luminous black curls was a garland of silk Le Rêve lilies. Admittedly, she was a theatrical creation and a most dramatically arranged centerpiece for the family’s evening. She waved a fan of flamingo feathers languidly throughout supper and ate little, keeping up a steady flow of conversation. She regaled everyone with a vivid montage of her activities in New York since she had left Byron Hall at the beginning of the summer. She talked of the theater, the opera, the art openings and clicked her tongue forlornly at the complete lack of cultural stimulation in Cape May.
She seemed entirely unaffected by the family’s silences—everyone’s that is but Cain’s. With the practiced artifice of an old campaigner, Antoinette made it her business to beguile him. Her soft laughter, her little jokes, her every gesture and pose were effected for his benefit and for his approval. Each time she waved her fan, the air became filled with her exotic scent. As the evening progressed, Cain seemed to relax. After the meal, she rallied them all around the piano. Cain sat with her on the bench and turned the pages of the music for her rather sultry rendition of “Put on Your Old Gray Bonnet.” Vanessa and Autumn excused themselves, exhausted, before nine o’clock, and it was with some asperity that Autumn watched Antoinette lead Cain into the garden for a private conversation.
He came later to Autumn’s room as she was reading by gaslight in her bed. Autumn heard his soft knock. She went to the door and protested in whispers as he took her hand and led her down the hall. When they were sequestered in his room, she told him exactly how dangerous was this little foray. He nodded but drew her to him.
“I need you tonight more than ever, love,” he intoned into her ear.
“Cain,” she said, pushing at his chest, “what did Antoinette say to you in the garden?”
“More of the same,” he told her as he began to remove his ascot. “You must not think about it. Antoinette is—”
“Antoinette,” returned Autumn, “is a practiced cocotte. She is a conspirator with the very basest nature of man, a trifler, a . . . tramp. She deliberately set out to seduce you tonight and she succeeded apparently. And now you expect me to satisfy a lust no doubt whetted by that seduction.” Cain’s gaze hooded as he caught her shoulders roughly.
“Antoinette is all you say she is, Autumn, and so much more. And I find her coquetry ridiculous. But right now we must both put up with it. If we want this charade to end, we must patiently and passively submit to her caprice.” He let her go very suddenly. “I believe,” he said quietly, “that Antoinette has no intention of marrying me. Even as she discusses the wedding and makes her elaborate preparations for, in her words, our ‘lovely fall wedding,’ I believe she has some other plan.”
“What . . . plan?” asked Autumn, her heart suddenly going cold.
“I don’t know,” he said, “but in our final conversation, she mentioned my mother—and you—often. Antoinette is a dangerous woman, Autumn. For God’s sake don’t you know that by now?” Suddenly she was in his arms, pressed to his chest. His heart thundered, and he held her tightly, possessively. A profound and utterly horrifying notion took hold of Autumn at that moment. It had been with her all day, since Antoinette’s arrival, but she had not faced it squarely. Antoinette had said once that she intended to destroy Autumn. Was that the true reason for her visit? Autumn shuddered involuntarily. If that was Antoinette’s intention, she had a great deal of ammunition with which to arm herself.
Chapter 23
Another fall wedding was being planned that September. It would be a hushed affair. The Very Reverend Oliver Mombert would officiate. His wife Leslie and Autumn Thackeray would be the only witnesses.
Robert Moffat was pacing his aerie, high above Cape May harbor. “I feel like the creature that Stoker fellow wrote about—the one who comes out only at night.” Vanessa and Autumn smiled.
“You mean Count Dracula,” said Vanessa.
“But he drinks people’s blood, Robert,” Autumn put in, laughing. “He sneaks up on women while they sleep.” Obviously relishing the gory image, Autumn’s voice lowered menacingly. “And he sinks his fangs into their necks and drains them of their very life.”
“You are very entertaining, little one,” he acknowledged, cocking his brow and offering a smile. “However, you have just strengthened the comparison,” he said solemnly. “We see each other only at night, and what am I in the final analysis but a consumer of Vanessa’s life’s blood? I take all and give nothing.” Autumn bit back a hasty response and allowed Vanessa herself to address that issue.
“We have been through this before, Robert,” that lady said gently. “I have told you and will repeat it till one of us dies, if necessary, that it does not matter if I am rich and you are not. You are not taking anything from me; you are giving me everything. You are giving me your love, Robert, and I know I can depend on that forever.”
“Your love has been nurtured in shadow, it is true,” Autumn said, “but by this time tomorrow, it will have emerged into the light of day. You may be seen together any time you wish.” Robert eyed her obliquely.
“Are you so confident that marriage will change things for us?”
“Of course,” Autumn stated with confidence. “Marriage changes everything.” The words tore at her heart like broken glass, so hopeful were they when uttered, so despairing a notion when viewed in terms of her own life. She forced a smile. Robert and Vanessa were looking out at the night that encircled them. Prisms of stars winked in the blackness of the sky, dazzlingly close. “If the night is for Mr. Stoker’s monster,” Autumn observed raptly, “it is also for lovers.”
As they drove home, Vanessa prodded Autumn with her own uncertainties. “I wonder if it is not dangerous for people to be so high above the earth as we have been. People were not meant to soar among the stars; it gives them a false sense of their own importance and makes them seem invulnerable to earthly realities.” She paused. “I would like to believe that in the end marriage will make everything right for Robert and me, but I must remember, and you must remember, too, Autumn, that when Cain hears of it he will be enraged.” Autumn snapped the horses to a brisk trot.
“Cain loves us both. Whatever his reaction to your marriage, that is what we must remember.”
Vanessa and Autumn entered the house through the back door and were surprised, and not pleasantly so, to find Antoinette awaiting them. She smiled brightly and asked where they had “toddled off to.” They each made hasty exc
uses for their absence, Autumn mentioning obliquely a literary club meeting and Vanessa murmuring something about visiting a friend. Neither was, despite their recent deception, a particularly accomplished liar. They doubted that Antoinette took much stock in their juryrigged stories, but they did not much care. The important thing was that Cain was not there to question their absence. He had ridden out earlier in the evening to visit Carrie Inman, who was now far advanced in her pregnancy, and several other of his house-bound patients.
“It’s been so lonely around here,” stated Antoinette petulantly. “I’ve just been dallying all night trying to think what to do to amuse myself.”
Vanessa drew off her shawl as she made her way through the kitchen and turned before exiting. “Perhaps it is time, then, that you thought about taking rooms at one of the hotels in the city. Naturally, we’re so very pleased that you could stay with us for as long as you have—it has been almost a week now, hasn’t it?—but we cannot, I fear, offer nearly the diversion you would find at the Adelphi, for instance. Please do not concern yourself with our feelings.” With a quick sloping glance toward Autumn, Vanessa withdrew. Autumn watched Antoinette’s gaze narrow dangerously. There was to be no more pretense, apparently, between the two women. At last she offered Autumn an altered regard.
“As Mrs. Byron seems weary of my company, I shall see about that hotel room in the morning. In case I don’t see Cain tomorrow, you will tell him where I’m staying.” Autumn nodded mechanically. “Thank you, dear girl. I shall retire now and you should as well. You’re looking tired these days. Do try to get a good night’s sleep.” Her words were benign, but her tone carried a menacing weight.
In her room, undressing slowly, Autumn felt the frenzied fear that had gripped her that first night of Antoinette’s arrival. Cain had made it his business to beguile Antoinette, even as she was attempting to beguile him. He had remained the courteous and politic host and fiancé. He absented himself often from Antoinette’s company, but when in her presence, he accepted her chattered plans stoically. It was only a matter of time before she revealed the real purpose of her visit, he reiterated night after night. Autumn shared his certainty and deeply feared some terrible plot against them.
As she lay in her bed, hovering above slumber, she thought of Cain and felt herself returning to the days of the first budding of their love. Phantoms of their life together rose before her, harmonizing fondly with the deep well of love she felt for him, veiling discord, obscuring gloom. She saw his lips saying her name, heard her name so tenderly spoken by him. Autumn drifted into dreams . . . of Cain.
The Very Reverend Oliver Mombert performed the brief ceremony. His wife Leslie sang a lilting hymn, the strains of it echoing in the sun-dappled nave of Our Lady, Star of the Sea Church. Vanessa wore a periwinkle blue gown that matched precisely, reflected Autumn as they said their vows, the sea-glass glint of Robert’s eyes.
“Is there anyone here,” asked Oliver Mombert, “who knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony?” The moment of quick expectancy passed, and the Reverend Mombert smiled benevolently. “Let him speak now or forever hold his peace.” Then the ceremony was done. A promise . . . a kiss . . . a marriage made, thought Autumn.
The heavy door slammed open at the back of the church. Autumn and the others looked to the terrible sound. Cain stood silhouetted in the arched opening. He raised his arm, pointing an avenging finger at the figures gathered at the altar.
“Get outside, Moffat!” he roared. Horrified, disbelieving for one uncomprehending moment, Autumn felt paralyzed. Then, bolting, she ran up the aisle. Robert was upon her in several strides, drawing her back.
“Don’t,” he commanded. Autumn was propelled sideways into a pew.
“Robert!” Vanessa shrieked. The Momberts, having been told of the wedding’s potential for discord, grabbed for her, but she shook them off. Forcing her way past Robert, she charged up the aisle. “If you touch him, Cain, I shall kill you!” she exclaimed, forcing her son back from the entrance. Arms flailing, Vanessa might have been possessed. Cain was knocked off balance, losing his footing on the steps leading down to the street. He stumbled, eyes widened, appalled, fending off his mother’s wild blows. Robert reached them. Autumn followed, running frenziedly through the church. In the sudden silence that followed, the Momberts glanced at each other, mouths agape. Never, in all their talks with Autumn about the necessity for secrecy, had they suspected that there might be a madman involved. Never in their forty years of service to the church had they encountered physical violence. They held on to each other as they made their way up the aisle to inspect the further occurrences outside.
Cain was scrambling to his feet. His face was a mask of bitterness. Brushing himself, his teeth bared, he eyed his mother scathingly.
“How dare you?” he grated.
“And how dare you, Cain,” she shot back. “I am still your mother, and this is my wedding day.”
“I do not accept that,” Cain returned. As Robert appeared, Cain said, “I do not accept you!” His steely regard was fixed on the older man, and he grabbed for him. Vanessa immediately drove herself between them. “Get out of my way, Mother,” Cain commanded.
“Get out of mine!” Vanessa shrilled. With a strength neither she nor her son suspected she possessed, Vanessa shoved at Cain. Once again he stumbled backwards, but regained his balance. A look of abject incomprehension crossed his face, and wrath was momentarily tempered. Immediately, however, he regained his anger.
“Go home, Mother,” he clenched. “This is between—”
“This,” Vanessa charged, “is between you and me.”
“Does the whoreson hide behind a woman’s skirts?”
“Robert is not hiding, Cain. He is protecting you!”
“Protecting me?” he snarled. “In the name of Christ, how did you come up with that notion?”
“In the name of our dear Christ, Cain,” said Vanessa raggedly, “in the name of love, Robert will not raise a hand to you.”
“Cain!” Robert’s voice filled the air as he moved forward. All eyes turned to him as he advanced. Fists clenched at his sides, he stood before Vanessa’s son. The two men were of a height and their gazes met. “It is true that I shall never fight you. But I am not afraid of you. Make no mistake, I am not afraid.” Vanessa tried to pull him back, but Robert held rigidly to his place before Cain. That man’s black regard drifted disparagingly down the length of the older man and then back up.
“It’s come to this, has it? You have driven me to physical violence and you’ve driven my mother to it. You’ve denigrated my authority, and now you tell me you will not defend yourself. Do you know what a detestable bastard your are?”
“I’m no bastard,” Robert returned vengefully. “And you, boy, need a lesson in who has driven whom to what. I only wish to hell it was me could give it to you. But I’ve given my word,” he grated, “so it won’t be me. But someday—boy—someone’s going to give you a lesson you won’t forget. I’d like to be around to see that.” His eyes glinted with his defiance, and Cain stiffened, every muscle in his body alive with the effort of restraint. Autumn stepped forward. She wanted desperately to go to him, but her movement was stilled as Cain’s regard fell with horrible accusation on her. Her hands flew to her lips. She realized in the malignity of his gaze a rancor she had never thought possible between them. Stunned, sickened, she merely stared.
The Sunday afternoon quiet of Beach Street had been disturbed. People were glancing from their doors and over their fences, and they halted their Sunday strolls in their curiosity.
“Hell’s bells,” called a voice from across the street. “What’s going on? Is somebody organizing a social and not telling the rest of us?” It was Annie Fitzpatrick. She and her friend Emma Cavanaugh strolled up the walk to the church, their parasols twirling, their skirts blowing perkily in the sea breezes. “Autumn,” Annie said, smiling as she recognized her friend, “church has been over for hours. What�
��re you folks doing here?”
Autumn cleared her throat and said gamely, “We’re having a wedding, Annie.”
“A wedding?” said Emma Cavanaugh excitedly. “I love weddings!”
“Who’s getting married?” In the general buzz of elation that followed, people detoured their afternoon strolls to make their way up the walk to the church. Hands were shaken, and hugs were shared all around. Whispered and unwhispered exclamations were heard.
“Vanessa Byron married? Who did she marry?”
“The lighthouse keeper?”
“No!”
“Really?”
Mrs. Pierce was heard to mention that Robert Moffat was, as she understood it, said to be a descendent of Captain Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, the Dutch sailor who had founded the city. Mrs. Butler wondered how she had come by such information, and Mrs. Pierce responded that she’d heard it . . . somewhere. And, anyway, why would the very wealthy and respectable Vanessa Byron marry him if he wasn’t someone terribly important? Mrs. Harmon agreed and hurried through the crowd to the newly wedded couple to tell them that she wished to be the first to open her home for a party in their honor. Not to be outdone, other ladies made it their business to ingratiate themselves with the socially prominent former Mrs. Byron and her historically prominent second husband, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Moffat were in the process of becoming the toast of Cape May.
Cain watched his mother narrowly, felt himself swept into embraces which he did not share, and finally, wordlessly exempted himself from the general congratulations. He turned and walked toward his horse that was tethered on the street. He mounted and took a last glance at the scene. His eyes met Autumn’s and they shared a phantom moment of remembering. And then the world intruded. Everything that had been between them had ended. One last moment of sadness passed between them before Cain’s eyes turned accusing. Autumn bowed her head and lifted it in time to see Cain’s form, the broad back, the proud shoulders, the poised head, disappear from her view. Amid the cheer and high spirits, Autumn knew the truth. Everything that she had feared had come to pass. This was the one thing for which Cain would never forgive her. Annie Fitzpatrick was at her side.