Casteel 04 Gates of Paradise

by V. C. Andrews

  Suddenly I saw a man appear as if out of the air. He must have been standing off in a shadow. I leaned as close to the window as I could and gazed at the figure made small by the distance. At first I thought it might be Luke, but as my eyes focused in more accurately, I realized he was a taller, thinner man.

  He stepped up to the monument and stared at it for the longest time. Then he dropped to his knees. I could see hie: lower his head, and although I was much too far away to be sure, I even thought I could see his body shudder with sobs.

  Who was he? It wasn't Tony, although there was something about the frame of his body that reminded me of Tony.

  Was it one of the help who remembered my mother well?

  I blinked because my eyes grew tired and began to tear from staring so intently, and then I leaned back and wiped them with the back of my hand.

  When I leaned forward again to look out at the cemetery and the monument, the man was gone. It was as if he popped into thin air, disappearing like a bubble.

  I sat back because something that occurred to me filled me with a shudder and a chill.

  Had I imagined him?

  Frustrated and exhausted, I backed away from the window.

  TWELVE Ghosts in the House

  . Tony found me asleep .in my wheelchair by the window. I woke when I felt him wheeling me back to the bed.

  "Oh, I didn't mean to wake you. You looked so beautiful, like a sleeping princess. I was just about to be the prince and kiss you to wake you," he said warmly, his eyes bright.

  "I can't believe I fell asleep so quickly. What time is it?"

  Dark, brooding clouds had slid across the sky, blocking the sun and making it hard to tell what time of day it was.

  "Don't be concerned. I'm sure your fatigue is a result of the therapy and the hot bath Mrs. Broadfield gave you," he explained with a father's comforting tone. "They'll wear you out in the beginning. You must remember that you still don't have much strength. That's why the doctors are so concerned that you have a peaceful, restful time while trying to recuperate. At least at the very beginning."

  I saw by the way he pressed down on his lips that this was meant as a reminder and as mild chastisement for the tantrum I threw when I discovered I had no phone.

  "I know. I just get so impatient, so frustrated," I offered as an excuse. His face lightened instantly.

  "Of course you feel that way. Why shouldn't you? Everyone understands. You have to come back slowly, in small increments, doing a little more each day. Broadfield says that when patients try to rush things along, they retard their recuperation."

  "The strange thing is, I don't feel that weak," I cried. "It's almost as if I could walk again immediately if I were forced to do it. At least, that's the feeling I get every once in a while."

  He nodded with understanding. "Your feelings deceive you. Dr. Malisoff told me that might happen. It's expected. The mind doesn't want to face up to the limits of the body."

  I wanted to show him that he and Mrs. Broadfield and the doctors were wrong, so I didn't ask him to help me up and out of the chair and into the bed. My hands wobbled on the arms of the chair as I tried to raise myself. But even putting all my weight on only my upper body, my lower body now just a bail and chain, I was unable to lift myself very high and fell back into the chair, my heart pounding from the effort. I felt a sharp pain across the middle of my brow and moaned.

  "As I said. It seems like you can do everything you used to do for yourself, but you can't. It's the mind's way of trying to deny what happened." He looked away for a moment. "And sometimes, sometimes even the best minds, the strongest minds, refuse to believe what their bodies . . . what reality tells them is true. They invent, pretend, fantasize, do anything to avoid hearing the words they dread," he explained, his voice dropping to a whisper.

  I stared up at him. He had spoken so

  passionately, so vehemently, that I felt overwhelmed. All I could do was nod. Then he turned back to me, his face changed again, a look of loving compassion in his eyes. He leaned down over me, his face so close to mine, our lips nearly touched, and he hooked his hands under my arms to lift my body out of the chair and onto the bed. For a long moment he held me, embracing me, his cheek pressed against mine. I thought he whispered Mommy's name, but then he swung me gently to the bed and I fell back against the pillow.

  "I'm not too rough, I hope," he said, still leaning over me, his face still very close to mine.

  "No, Tony." I knew it was unfair and even silly to think it, but I hated my body for betraying me and leaving me dependent upon the mercy and kindness of other people.

  "Perhaps you should take a nap before dinner," he said. I didn't need the suggestion. My eyelids felt so heavy it was hard to keep them open. Everytime I did look up, it seemed as if Tony were leaning closer and closer over me. I know I wasn't supposed to be able to feel anyone touch me from the waist down, but I thought his hands were over my legs, caressing them. I fought to keep myself awake in order to confirm or deny what I was seeing, but I dropped off quickly, like one under sedation, my last thought being Tony's lips were moving down my cheek toward my lips.

  I next awoke to the sound of Millie Thomas setting my supper tray on the bed table beside me. Apparently I had slept through a summer

  thunderstorm, for I could smell the fresh, wet scent of rain, even though the sky was now only partly cloudy.

  When I recalled Tony helping me to bed and thought about the image of his hands on my legs and his lips close to mine, I considered it some kind of dreary. It seemed too ethereal, too misty a memory, anyway.

  "Didn't mean to wake you, Miss Annie," she said timidly.

  I blinked and blinked and focused in on her. With her arms pressed tightly against her body and her hands overlapping at her waist, she looked penitent, like one of the people from the Willies who had just been lectured by old Reverend Wise. He was always harder on them than he was on the people from Winnerrow proper.

  "That's all right, Millie. I should be awake. It rained, didn't it?"

  "Oh, like the dickens, Miss Annie!"

  "Please, don't call me Miss Annie. Just call me Annie." She nodded slightly. "Where are you from, Millie?"

  "Oh, from Boston."

  "Do you know where Harvard is?"

  "Of course, Miss . . of course, Annie."

  "My uncle Drake goes there, and I have a . . a cousin going there now, too. His name is Luke."

  She smiled more warmly and fixed my sitting pillow behind me. I pulled myself up into position to eat and she wheeled the table to the bed.

  "I don't know anyone who went to Harvard." "How long have you been working as a maid, Millie?"

  "Five years. Before that I worked as a stock girl at Filene's, but I didn't like the work as much as I like working as a maid."

  "Why do you like working as a maid?"

  "You get to work in such nice houses. All not as big as this one, of course; but nice ones. And you meet people of better breeding. That's the way my mother put it. She was a maid, too, for years and years. Now she's in a rest home."

  "Oh, I'm sorry."

  "That's okay. She's happy. I'm sorry for you, Annie. I know your tragedy. All the servants were talking about your mother this morning, the ones who remembered her, that is."

  "You mean like Rye Whiskey?"

  She laughed.

  "When the groundskeeper called him that, I thought he was ordering a drink."

  "My mother used to call him that, too. But that reminds me. When you go back down to the kitchen, you tell Rye Whiskey that I want him to come up to see me. Right away. Tony was supposed to send him up, but he must have forgotten. Will you do that, please?"

  "Oh, of course, I will. I'll go right down now. Would there be anything else you might want with your supper?"

  "No, this all looks fine."

  "Then you'd better eat it before it all gets cold," Mrs. Broadfield snapped as she came into the bedroom and crossed to the bathroom, carrying an armful
of fresh, white towels. "Didn't I ask you to bring up these towels?" she said, turning at the bathroom door. Millie blushed.

  "I was going to do just that, ma'am, as soon as I served Annie her supper."

  Mrs. Broadfield grunted and continued on into the bathroom. Millie started away quickly.

  "Don't forget Rye Whiskey," I called to her in a loud whisper.

  "I won't."

  Mrs. Broadfield came out and stopped at my bed to look over ray meal. She frowned at the small piece of chocolate cake.

  "I distinctly told that cook not to put rich desserts on your tray. Just Jell-O for now."

  "That's all right. I won't eat the cake."

  "No, you won't," she said, and reached over to take it of the tray. "I'll see that you get the Jell-O." "It's not important."

  "Following my orders is important," she i uttered, and then she pulled her shoulders back like a general and marched out of the room. Poor Rye Whiskey, I thought. I hadn't even met him yet, and now, because of me, he had gotten into trouble. I finished my meal, eating more out of necessity than out of pleasure, chewing and swallowing mindlessly. Each piece of broiled chicken tasted as if it were made of stone. It wasn't the fault of the carefully prepared food. I was just too tired and too depressed to care.

  Just as I finished, I heard a knock on my outside door. I looked out and saw the elderly black man I knew had to be Rye Whiskey. He still wore his kitchen apron and carried a small dish of Jell-O.

  "Come in," I called, and he came forward slowly. As he drew closer I saw that his eyes were wide, the whites around his black pupils so bright, it was as if a candle burned behind them like the candles in pumpkins on Halloween. What he saw in me obviously took his breath away.

  "You must be Rye Whiskey."

  "And you surely is Annie, Heaven's daughter. When I first set eyes on you from the doorway there, I thought I was lookin' at a ghost. Weren't the first time I thought I saw sornethird like that in this house, neither."

  He tipped his head to whisper some prayerful words and then looked up, his face a portrait of sadness and worry. I knew he had been here through all of it: my grandmother's flight from home, my great-grandmother Jillian's madness and subsequent death, my mother's arrival and eventual unhappy parting with Tony Tatterton, and now my tragic arrival.

  His thin hair was as white as snow, but he had a remarkably smooth, wrinkle-free face and looked very spry for a man I estimated to be close to if not over eighty.

  "My mother often spoke fondly about you, Rye."

  "I'm glad ta hear dat, Miss Annie, for I was sho' fond o' yer mama." His smile widened and he nodded, his head bobbing as if his neck were a spring. He glanced at my supper tray. "Food all right?"

  "Oh, very tasty, Rye. I'm just not that excited about eating right now."

  "Well, ole Rye Whiskey's goin' ta change that." His eyes crinkled in a smile and he nodded his head again. "So, how you-gettin' along, Miss Annie?"

  "It's hard, Rye." Funny, I thought, but I felt comfortable being honest with him right from the start. Maybe it was because of the way Mother had spoken about him.

  "Oh, I expect it would be." He leaned back on his heels. "I can remember the first time yer mama came ta the kitchen ta see me. Remember it just like it was yesterday. Just like you, she was so much like her own mama. She would come in an' watch me cookin' for hours, sittin' there on a stool, restin' her head on her hand and pepperin' me with all sorts of questions 'bout the Tattertons. She was 'bout as curious as a kitten who got inta a linen basket."

  "What did she want to know?"

  "Oh, jes"bout eveythin' I could remember 'bout this family--uncles, aunts, Mr. Tatterton's pappy and grandpappy. Whose picture was that on the wall, whose was this? 'Course, like in any family, there was things decent folk don't gossip 'bout."

  What things, I longed to ask him, but I held my tongue, biding my time. Rye slapped his hands to his thighs and sighed.

  "So, is there anythin' special I can make you?" he asked to quickly change the subject.

  "I like fried chicken. My cook in Winnerrow makes a batter--"

  "Oh, he does . . . well, you ain't tasted mine yet, chile, make you that this week. Unless your nurse says otherwise." He looked back to be sure Mrs. Broadfield wasn't there. "She come inta the kitchen with a list of do's and don'ts. Made my assistant, Roger, as nervous as the Devil on Sunday."

  "I don't see how Southern fried chicken could hurt. Rye," I said, swinging my eyes toward the window, "Farthy was a much prettier place when my mother lived here, wasn't it?"

  "Oh, and how! Why, when the flowers would bloom, it looked like Heaven's Gate."

  "Why did Mr. Tatterton let it fall apart?"

  He shifted his eyes away quickly. I saw that my question made him nervous, but that only made me more curious about his answer.

  "Mr. Tatterton's had a hard time, Miss Annie, but he sho' has changed a whole lot since yourself arrived. Almost back to the way he was--talking 'bout fixie this and buildin' that. Things are comin' back to life 'round here, which is good for us aid bad for the ghosts," he whispered.

  "Ghosts?"

  "Well, like any big house that had so many people movin' through it, spirits linger, Miss Annie." He nodded for emphasis. "But I ain't one to challenge that, and neither is Mr. Tatterton. We live side by side with 'em and they don' bother us none and we don' bother them."

  I saw he was serious.

  "Are there many servants here now who were here when my mother lived here, Rye?"

  "Oh no, Miss Annie. There's jes' myself, Curtis, and Miles. All the maids and grounds helpers are gone, mostly dead and gone."

  "Is there a tall, thin man working here, too, a man much younger than Curtis?"

  He thought a moment and shook his head. "There's groundsmen, but they're all short and stocky."

  Who was that man at my parents' tomb? I wondered. Rye continued to gaze at me, a fond smile on his face.

  "Has it been hard for you these past years, Rye, because of the way Mr. Tatterton was?"

  "No, ma'am, not hard. Sad, but not hard. 'Course, I stayed in my room after supper and left the house to the spirits. Now," he smiled, "they gonna retreat and hover 'bout their graves mostly, 'cause we got light and life again. Spirits hate young people roamin' 'bout. Makes 'em jittery 'cause the young folks got so much energy and brightness 'bout 'em."

  "You really heard these spirits in the house, Rye?" I tipped my head and smiled, but he didn't smile back.

  "Oh yes, ma'am. Many a night. There's one spirit, very unhappy one, who roams the halls, goes from room to room, searchin'."

  "For what?"

  "Don' know, Miss Annie. Dan' talk to and he

  don' talk ta me. But I've heard him walkin"bout and I've heard the music."

  "Music?"

  "Piana music. Sweet music."

  "Did you ever ask Mr. Tatterton about it?"

  "No, Miss Annie. Didn't have to. Saw it in his eyes." "Saw what?"

  "That he heard and saw the same things I did. But you forgets all about that, Miss Annie. You get strong and better fast. Ole Rye will cook up a storm now that there's someone to cook for."

  I thought a moment.

  "Rye, is there a horse here called Scuttles?"

  "Scuttles, Miss Annie? There ain't no horses now. H'ain't been any for some time. Scuttles?" His eyes went from side to side as he thought, scanning his memory. I saw him stop thinking, a realization coming to him.

  "Scuttles, why that was the name Miss Jillian gave to her ridin' pony. She lived on a horse ranch when she was a young girl. I remembers her talkin ,,bout that pony all the time. But we never had one here named Scuttles. Her horse was called Abdulla Bar. A devilish animal," he added, his eyes

  brightening with fear.

  "Why do you say that, Rye?"

  "He let no one but Miss Jillian ride 'im, so Mr. Tatterton kept everyone else off, 'cept that one terrible time. But it wasn't his fault," he added quickly.

  "What terrible
time, Rye?"

  "Oh, this ain't the time to talk 'bout sad things, Miss Annie. You got your own hardship ta bear."

  "Please, Rye, I don't want to ask Mr. Tatterton, but I want to know."

  He looked back and stepped closer to the bed. He shook his head and lowered his eyes.

  "It was his brother, Mr. Troy, Miss Annie. One day he jes' hopped on that stallion and rode him into the sea. Only a Devil horse woulda done it. Any other horse woulda refused to go in."

  "So that's what Drake meant when he said Troy committed suicide. He rode my great-grandmother's horse into the ocean and--"

  "And he drowned, Miss Annie. Seems this house has had more'n its share of hardships ta bear, hasn't it, Miss Annie?" He shook his head.

  "Sometimes it's harder ta live ta a ripe ole age. Yer haunted by the many bad memories and ya hear the many lonely spirits."

  "But why did he do such a thing, Rye?"

  "Oh, I wouldn't know," he said quickly; too quickly, I thought. "Troy was as handsome a young man as yall ever see, and talented, too. He made many of the toys, ya know. Only, I never called 'em toys. They was more like art." He shook his head and smiled, recalling. "Lil houses and lil people, some made inta music boxes."

  "Music boxes?"

  "Beautiful melodies . . . like soft piana music."

  "Chopin," I muttered. The memory of my mother's musical cottage sent my heart pitterpattering, overwhelming me with a flush of sadness.

  "What's that, Miss Annie?"

  I shifted my eyes away quickly, not wanting him to see my tears.

  "I was just thinking of a composer."

  "Oh. Well, I best get my ole self back down ta the kitchen and see what Roger's up to. He's my-- what do you call 'im--apprentice. Ole Rye can't expects he'll be workin' in that kitche forever, and Mr. Tatterton needs a good cook when I gets the call to join my maker. 'Course, rights now, I play deaf to that, Miss Annie," he said, smiling widely. We laughed.

  "Oh, I almost forgot yer Je11-0." He put the dish on my tray.

  "Sorry 1 can't have your chocolate cake, Rye. It looked delicious."

  "Oh yes, she brought that right down again." He looked back and then leaned toward me. "Course, find away to sneak a piece back up. Jest ya wait."