by Jane Toombs
She shot up from the window seat, poised to flee as the whining grew and faded, grew and faded. Standing in the darkness, with one hand on the doorknob, she paused. Hadn't she promised herself never to run away from her fears again?
"Who's there?" she called, surprised her words hadn't come out as a frightened squeak.
There was no answer, but the whining noise ceased. After a moment she cautiously opened the door. The landing light wasn't on so she emerged from darkness into darkness. Trying to convince herself she wasn't frightened, she groped her way toward where she knew the landing light switch was.
She touched cloth, heard a muttered curse. Hands grabbed her, something tightened around her neck and she dropped into nothingness.
When Samara opened her eyes, she saw a painted mountainside covered with trees. She blinked, trying to focus. "Are you all right?" Mark's voice asked.
She turned her head and saw his face above her, then realized she was lying on the floor with her head and shoulder in his lap. The smell of turpentine told her they were in the north tower, but she didn't understand how she'd gotten there.
"What happened?" she asked.
"You don't remember?"
"No, just my throat..." She felt her neck.
"I had no idea you were up here," Mark said.
"The south tower's my favorite hideaway."
He shook his head. "I did not know. After dinner I came up to paint in this north tower and I must have fallen into a doze. I heard someone call, woke up to darkness and came out onto the landing, also dark, where I ran into you."
She stroked her throat, feeling the pink ribbon. "I couldn't breathe."
"I beg your forgiveness. My hand tangled in your ribbon and it choked you. You fell against me and I carried you in here and turned on the light so I could see what was wrong. I would not have hurt you for the world."
"It wasn't your fault and I'm not really hurt." She shifted position and he lifted her higher, into his arms so he cradled her.
She wanted to stay right where she was forever. A dim recollection of a whistling noise came to her and was banished when his mouth covered hers. Then nothing mattered except Mark.
"Your uncle warned me to stay away from you," he whispered after a time, his warm breath tickling her ear, sending pleasing little shock waves through her. His words, though, made her pull away and sit up.
"Uncle Vince? Why on earth would he do that?"
"The hired help are not to fraternize with the lords and ladies of the manor."
She stared at him. "He said that?"
"In essence. Plus you are much too young and inexperienced for an old roué such as I."
Samara rose, realized her robe had opened slightly and blushed, drawing it close about her and tying it more securely. "My uncle doesn't run my life. I'm not a child, and what I do is my affair."
"I do work for your father," Mark reminded her.
Drawing an indignant breath, she said, "Surely Uncle Vince didn't threaten to have Daddy send you away."
Mark raised his eyebrows. "Did he not?"
"My father likes you. He wouldn't agree with my uncle."
"I think where a father is concerned, his daughter's welfare takes precedence over all else. Neither of them would believe me if I said I loved you very much and would never wish you any harm."
Samara's heart flip-flopped. "Do you love me? Really?"
"You are the first perfect girl I have ever met. Beauty, innocence and a strong, fine spirit. Unfortunately, your family has money. It is difficult for wealthy parents to believe a man could love their daughter for herself alone."
"I don't care about money," she cried. "Only you. I love you, Mark." She flung herself into his arms.
His kiss, hard and demanding, thrilled through her.
When she felt his hand under her robe, caressing her bare skin, she melted inside, clinging to him, strange and exciting sensations filling her with need. She moaned when he put her away from him.
"We must not lose our heads," he said hoarsely. "Difficult as you make that for me. We must go slowly to work our way through the opposition."
She sighed as she tightened the belt of her robe once again, "But I want you to kiss me some more."
He shook his head. "It is best if I seem to accede to your uncle's wishes. I tried to begin convincing him at dinner when I looked everywhere but at you. That poor little maid, I embarrassed her with my ogling."
Samara laughed with relief. "You convinced me, at least. Rosita is very pretty."
Mark waved his hand. "A common type. A mere servant cannot be compared to a princess."
His words made her feel both flattered and slightly uneasy.
"Now, perhaps," he said, "it would be wise for you to go to your room. We do not want anyone to suspect we are together."
She, sighed, aware he was right. Obediently, she started for the door, pausing when he said, "I will be gone over the weekend."
"Oh, must you?"
"I have gone away every weekend before you came home and I do not think it wise to change the pattern. Wait for me Sunday up here in your tower, my princess."
As she descended the stairs to her room, Samara thought she'd never been so happy in her whole life. Mark loved her! What more could she ask for?
On Saturday morning, Samara lay in bed late, awake but half-dreaming of what would happen Sunday evening, when someone knocked on her door. Expecting it to be Vera, concerned about how she felt, Samara called, "Come in."
Marie entered instead. She closed the door behind her and perched on the edge of the bed. Her hair was down, caught back with a ribbon, her face without makeup. She looked her age.
"Samara, I owe you an apology. I don't often make them, so pay attention to this one. We may never be friends, but I don't mean to have you hate me. About Mark--"
Samara sat up abruptly. "I don't intend to discuss him with you."
Marie waved an impatient hand. "Oh, don't be so--so young. Funny, I envy your youth and yet I wouldn't want to be so naive ever again. If you won't discuss Mark, you'll still have to listen to me."
"Why?"
"Because I made a mistake yesterday by the pool. I looked at you and thought Delores. She's Delores all over again and she's going to take another man away from me just like Delores took all the others.? Marie reached into a pocket of her robe, took out a gold case and selected a cigarette. "You didn't know your father knew me before he met Delores, did you?"
Samara shook her head.
"John might not have married me, but then he might have, who knows. He did like me. Then Delores saw him and poof!" Marie lit the cigarette with trembling fingers. "Later there was Vincent." She paused and eyed Samara as if to gauge how much she might know.
"I'd rather not discuss my mother's affairs, either," Samara said. "I know she had them, but I find the subject distasteful."
Marie went on as though she hadn't heard. "Delores took Vincent as a lover only because she saw I wanted him. Then, of course, she told him why. He never got over that. Delores could be cruel. I saw her tease your poor brother until--"
Samara made a sound of protest.
"You're right--best to leave Sergei out of this. Anyway, last night I finally realized that you aren't and never will be Delores. You may be as pretty as she was, but you haven't her nature. At the moment you're a young girl with no defense at all against a man like Mark. Distasteful as it may be to me as well as to you, I feel I must warn you about him."
Samara resisted a childish impulse to cover her ears with her hands. "I don't want to hear."
"Nevertheless, you must. To be blunt, Mark and I were lovers until just before you came home."
"I don't believe you." Samara spoke bravely, but her heart sank.
Marie shrugged. "More fool you. Don't you have any idea of what men are like? What they want?"
"Mark loves me!"
"Why not? You're young, pretty and there's the Gregory fortune in the offing. But you didn't real
ly listen to what I said. You aren't the reason Mark stopped our affair--that happened before you came home. Little Rosita is the reason. You really are a fool if you don't recognize what's going on between them."
Chapter 25
Samara looked at Marie sitting on the end of her bed and closed her mind. Marie must be lying, she had to be lying. She smiled deliberately.
Marie raised her eyebrows. “Such complacency. Haven't you seen how Mark looks at Rosita? Last night at dinner--"
"He's explained that to me," Samara said, then was furious at herself for admitting anything to Marie.
Marie sighed. "In the face of youth and first love, I guess it's hopeless. There's no way to keep you from being hurt. Maybe there's never any way to prevent that. But the man's no good, Samara. "If you marry him he'll be after another woman in a month or two. I've met enough men like him, God knows, to recognize one blindfolded."
He's been waiting for someone like me, Samara told herself. He's never been in love before. This is different.
Marie rose. "You won't pay attention I see. Well, don't say I didn't warn you." She left the bedroom, a thin trail of smoke lingering behind her.
As she bathed and dressed, Samara decided she'd have to put away any feelings about Mark having made love to Marie, since that was before she'd come into his life. As for Rosita, there was nothing to that. Still, Marie's words had ever so slightly tarnished the shining edges of their love.
In mid-morning, she took Johanna for the promised horseback ride, then later drove her to Porterville for the ice cream cone.
"I like this better than s-sharing," Johanna said. "Naomi and Katrina always want to do what I do. They're pests."
"Don't forget they look up to you and want to be like you," Samara said. "You have to try to be patient because you're older and know more than they do."
Johanna gazed at her thoughtfully. "I still don't like to share people," she said at last.
"No one does," Samara agreed. "But we have to. Just as you love more than one person, so do others. I love Vera, you love her, the twins do, so does Daddy. And she loves us all back. Wouldn't it be awful if she only loved Daddy and couldn't share her love with us?"
As Samara spoke, the memory of the morning's conversation with Marie came back to her. Delores, her birth mother, had apparently loved no one, not even Daddy. Or Sergei, despite paying him so much attention.
Delores had been cruel, Marie said. Certainly cruel to make Sergei love her so much and then ignore him while she took casual lovers.
"If you marry Mark so I can't," Johanna said, "maybe I'll m-marry Sal. He's nice."
"Yes, I like Sal," Samara agreed. "He's kind."
"The horses like him, too," Johanna said, "I wish they l-liked me that much."
"Maybe they will once you learn to take care of them."
"Sal's going to t-teach me. He said so. He would have yesterday only R-Rosita came to find him and she began to cry so Sal had to talk to her and he asked me to leave."
"What was Rosita crying about?"
"I don't know. I don't l-like her very well, 'cause whenever she comes I have to go someplace else."
"What do you mean?"
"Mark used to make me leave, too. I wish G-Geneva was back."
Stop questioning Johanna, Samara warned herself. Don't even think about why Rosita and Mark were together.
After dinner, Samara joined Vera and her father in the library.
"I'm going to listen to the news," he warned her. Turning to Vera, he added, "Samara's not interested in the war."
"I just wish they'd get it over with," Samara said. "I hate hearing about all that fighting and bloodshed."
"I'm afraid the fighting will go on," John told her. "My feeling is Congress will pass a Selective Service Act by next year so we'll be able to draft men for our own Army."
"What for?" Samara asked. "We're not in any danger over her, are we?"
"That's not the point. Sooner or later you have to stand up with your friends against enemies that threaten the entire world. There's no way we can keep out of this war."
"I hate to think of all those young men being drafted to fight," Vera said. "Thank heaven you're forty, John. I couldn't bear to see you go off to war."
Samara thought of her dead brother. If he were alive, Sergei would be twenty and eligible for the draft.
"Vincent's only thirty-five," Vera added. "Do you think they might take him?"
Uncle Vincent a soldier? Samara almost laughed aloud and then sobered as the realization came to her that, if the law was passed, he might have to become one.
"Don't forget that Vincent knows how to fly airplanes," her father said. "That'll be a needed skill if we do go to war."
It was easier to imagine her uncle as a pilot, up in the sky. Then Samara came to earth with a jolt. Mark was younger than Vincent. He was a naturalized citizen so he'd be eligible, wouldn't he?
Her father switched the radio on. She listened to the news with interest, feeling for the first time that it might directly affect her life. After the commentator finished, the station played a recording of the national anthem and Samara was surprised to find herself stirred.
"What does it mean to us that France has signed an armistice?" she asked.
"It brings us that much closer to the brink," her father said grimly.
Sunday dragged until Samara thought the day would never edge into night. Two days without seeing Mark seemed an eternity. Dinner came and went and finally evening shadows fell over the house. She investigated her closet without finding anything glamorous enough to wear. The truth was she didn't possess one really sophisticated garment.
Finally settling on a lime green skirt with a white peasant blouse that picked up the green in the embroidery around the neck, she chose a book to carry up to the tower room with her. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. One of her friends at Stanford had "...just loved it. So romantic."
To her surprise, Samara found the book so engrossing that time passed quickly. When Mark opened the door to the south tower, though, she cast the book aside to rush into his arms.
"My princess in the tower," he murmured.
"Oh, Mark," she cried, "I don't want you to be a soldier."
"What?" He held her away to look at her. "What are you saying?"
"Daddy says there'll be a draft soon. You'll have to go, won't you?"
"Don't talk nonsense. The United States is not at war."
"But the news--"
"Do not worry your pretty little head over such things. I am here and we are together. Now is what matters."
He kissed her and all her doubts and apprehensions fled. Later, though, after she'd gone to her room, she couldn't prevent the negative thoughts from filling her mind. What about Rosita? Johanna's comments made it obvious that Mark and Rosita had been meeting. He'd been with Marie, as well. Why would he seek out a woman older than he was? She tried to shut out images of Marie in Mark's embrace and of him kissing Rosita.
Finally she decided to finish the book to get her mind off such disturbing thoughts. But her copy of Rebecca was nowhere to be found--she must have left it in the tower. Since she knew she'd never go to sleep unless reading made her drowsy, she decided she might as well retrieve the book. The corridor was as dimly lit as ever--something that Vera hadn't gotten around to improving. When she opened the door to the third floor staircase she reached in to switch on that light. Nothing happened when she did. The bulb must be burned out, she have to tell Jose in the morning.
Samara felt her way up the steps in the dark. Since the switch controlled the landing light as well, she was forced to grope for the knob of the south tower door. She'd started to turn it when the high pitched whistling sound began again, even eerier in the dark. This time, though, she could tell exactly where it came from--the room behind the black door. Impossible! The black door had been locked for years-- ever since Sergei died--and the lock on the door was new. No one could possibly be inside the room. Yet the sound contin
ued.
She wanted nothing more than to flee to the safety of her room but her feet seemed glued to the landing. She couldn't move or even think clearly. Huddled against the closed door of the south tower, she stared into the darkness.
Fragments of remembered horror snaked into her mind. Sergei with his black candles--four because that was the devil's number. His strange chants, her fear of him and her helplessness to free herself of his domination.
"Look at the candle flame, Samara, and listen to me. You're tired, you want to sleep, your eyes are heavy..." Sergei's voice in her mind, hypnotic, pervasive.