The Unloved

by John Saul

  Jeff sniffled, then wiped his nose with his sleeve. “I know,” he mumbled. “But I still hate it here.” He was about to say something else, when the door at the top of the stairs opened and Ruby called down.

  “Will Hempstead’s here,” she said. “Wants to talk to you.”

  Kevin glanced up with a flash of irritation and almost told Ruby to tell the police chief to come back later. Then he thought better of it and stood up, giving Jeff’s head a quick rub. “How about that?” he asked, forcing a light tone into his voice. “Just as we’re getting sick of being stuck down here, Mr. Hempstead comes along. Come on, let’s go see what he wants.” He started up the stairs, and Jeff, only somewhat mollified by escaping the hot confines of the basement, trailed along.

  They found Hempstead in the library. When he turned to face Kevin and Jeff as they came in, his eyes were grave.

  “Will,” Kevin greeted him, extending his hand and trying not to show the sudden twinge of anxiety he felt at the expression on the police chief’s face. “Good to see you.”

  The police chief shook Kevin’s hand perfunctorily, then dropped it. “Thought I’d come out and tell you the autopsy on Mary-Beth Fletcher’s done.” He paused then, nodding toward Jeff, and didn’t go on until Kevin had sent the boy out of the room. But neither of the two men noticed Jeff leave the door to the library ajar. “Couldn’t tell much, really,” he said when they were alone. “She’d been in the water too long and—well, you saw her. Anyway, the final report’s going to show that it was an accident. If the storm was strong enough to take a car off the causeway, Mary-Beth wouldn’t have had much of a chance at all.”

  “Then it’s over,” Kevin replied, relaxing.

  Hempstead shook his head. “I wish it were. But with this kind of thing—well, I’m afraid there’s some talk going around.”

  “Talk?” Kevin echoed. “What kind of talk?”

  Hempstead shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “Well, I’m afraid it’s about Marguerite. There’re some people saying that since Marguerite was the last person to see Mary-Beth, and since they’d had some kind of fight—”

  “It was hardly a fight,” Kevin interjected. “All Marguerite was doing was trying to talk Mary-Beth into waiting out the storm. Surely people aren’t saying—”

  Hempstead cut him off with a gesture. “In towns like this there’s no telling what people’ll say. That’s why I wanted to come out and talk to you about it. You might hear some gossip, and I just wanted you to know that that’s all it is. There isn’t any evidence that anyone did anything to Mary-Beth, and I certainly don’t even intend to talk to Marguerite about it. I’ve known her too long, and I know she’d never do anything to any of the kids. The whole idea’s just plain ridiculous. But there’s always a few gossips, and they always have to find something to talk about.”

  Kevin nodded. “You’re sure you don’t want to talk to Marguerite?” he asked. “She’s upstairs.”

  Hempstead shook his head. “No use upsetting her,” he said.

  The two men left the library, and Kevin frowned as he saw Jeff scuttle out of sight. But he said nothing, instead walking the police chief out to his car. They chatted briefly, then Kevin stepped back as the black and white car pulled down the driveway and onto the road to the causeway. As he started back into the house, Jeff came out to the veranda.

  “Can’t we go to the beach, Dad? How come we have to work all the time?”

  Kevin cocked his head and winked at his son. “Because if we don’t we’ll all starve to death. Now, come on. We’re almost finished down there, and once we’ve got all the junk cleaned out, we’ll knock off. Okay?”

  Jeff silently followed his father back to the basement, but as Kevin once more began hauling crumbling cardboard boxes toward the foot of the stairs, he said, “I bet everybody’s right. I bet Aunt Marguerite did kill Mary-Beth Fletcher.” He clapped his hands over his mouth as he realized he’d just admitted his eavesdropping.

  Kevin turned to stare at his son. “Aside from the fact that you shouldn’t have been listening to a private talk, what on earth would make you say something like that?”

  Jeff glared up at his father, his eyes stormy. “Because she’s crazy,” he said. “She’s crazy, and I bet she killed Mary-Beth, and killed Mommy too!”

  “Jeff!”

  But Jeff wouldn’t be stopped. “Well, it’s true!” he yelled. “I saw Aunt Marguerite in Grandmother’s room, and she was acting real crazy. And when you’re around, she always acts like she likes me, but she doesn’t. When you and Julie aren’t around, she yells at me and tries to boss me around, and tries to act like she’s my mom! But she’s not. She’s a crazy person, and I bet she killed Mom and Mary-Beth. And I bet she wants to kill me too!”

  Before he even thought about what he was doing, Kevin’s hand lashed out and struck Jeff across the face. “Don’t you ever talk that way again,” he said. “Aunt Marguerite loves you very much, and she’d never want to hurt you!”

  “It’s not true!” Jeff shouted, tears streaming from his eyes, his hand pressed to his stinging cheek. “She hates me, and she’s going to kill me!” As Kevin raised his hand once more, Jeff shrank away, taking a step backward. Losing his balance, he fell over, screaming in pain as his head struck one of the posts that supported the floor above.

  His anger draining away as suddenly as it had come over him, Kevin stared helplessly at his son for a second, then reached down and picked him up. Jeff was screaming now and blood was streaming from a cut on the back of his head. Kevin charged up the stairs, Jeff clasped to his chest, calling out for Ruby. By the time he got to the top of the stairs, Ruby was there, waiting for him. Her eyes took in the situation at once.

  “Take him to Dr. Adams,” she said. “Go on, take him now. I’ll call ahead and tell him you’re coming.”

  “He—He fell,” Kevin stammered, his face pale as he still held his son. “I was yelling at him, Ruby. I—I even hit him, and he fell down and hit his head.”

  Ruby brushed his words aside. “Don’t tell me. Just get him on into town and get that head sewn up. And don’t worry—cuts on the head bleed like crazy, but there ain’t nothin’ to them. Now, get along with you.” She hustled Kevin out the door, then hurried to the phone as Kevin loaded Jeff into Marguerite’s Chevy and started toward the village.

  Julie woke up from a restless sleep and heard the car pulling away from the house. For a moment she thought it must be Mrs. Mayhew taking the girls home, but when she got out of bed and moved shakily to the window, she saw her aunt’s car with her father at the wheel, moving toward the causeway. And then, as the sound of its engine died away, she heard the faint notes of scratchy music drifting down from the ballroom above.

  Her friends must still be in the house, and the lesson was running overtime.

  She put on her bathrobe and went to the door. Her legs felt stronger now, but her mind was still fogged from the pills. Outside her room she leaned against the wall for a moment, waiting for a slight dizziness to pass. Then she started along the hall, toward the stairs to the third floor.

  She climbed the stairs slowly, pausing several times to catch her breath, but at last she reached the top and the small foyer that led through double doors to the ballroom.

  Both the doors were closed, but she could hear the music clearly now.

  Putting her hand on one of the doors, she pushed it open and stepped inside, expecting to see Jennifer, Allison, and Tammy-Jo on the floor, while Marguerite stood near the barre, watching them carefully, offering small corrections and words of encouragement.

  Instead she saw that the room was empty save for Marguerite herself, who was in the middle of the floor, her eyes closed, her arms held aloft as she moved her body through a series of halting dips and turns.

  Her right leg, made stiff by the long-ago accident, jutted out from her hip at an unnatural angle, and as she moved, her whole body jerked grotesquely as the lame leg refused to do her biddin
g.

  Julie gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth as she watched the strange parody of a dance. But then, as she was about to slip away, Marguerite’s eyes suddenly opened.

  “Come,” Marguerite said, her voice echoing in the empty room. “Come and dance with me.”

  She moved toward Julie, her arm extended, and clasped Julie’s hand in her own, drawing her out onto the floor.

  “Position one,” Marguerite commanded.

  Automatically Julie’s feet turned outward, heels together, and her arms fell gracefully to her sides, her elbows bent so that her curving fingers nearly met.

  Marguerite, her stiff leg resisting her mind’s commands, tried to force herself into the position, but her body twisted around on her left leg and she staggered before Julie caught her arm.

  “You can’t, Aunt Marguerite—” she began, but her aunt ignored her.

  “I must,” she breathed. “I must dance. It’s all I have … all I ever wanted.” Once again she tried to force herself into the graceful pose, and a searing pain shot out from her hip as her body protested. Her eyes welled with tears.

  “Don’t, Aunt Marguerite,” Julie protested. “You’ll hurt yourself. Wh-Where are the girls? Jennifer promised—”

  “They’ll be back,” Marguerite said. She took a step forward, then turned, her left knee bending as she dropped into a stiff curtsey, while her crippled right leg, twisted at an odd angle, stretched out behind her. “I know they’ll come back. They won’t leave me. I know they won’t.”

  Julie’s mind struggled in the fog of the sedative. Come back? But where had they gone? What was wrong? What had happened?

  She was still trying to make sense of the strange scene in the ballroom when she felt a hand on her arm. She turned to see Ruby looking at her, her eyes filled with worry.

  “You shouldn’t be up here,” the old housekeeper said. “You should be in your room, honey. You should be resting.”

  Julie shook her head as if trying to clear it of the strange fog. “But what’s wrong?” she asked. “Where are my friends?”

  Ruby gently eased Julie toward the door. “They’re gone, child. The class is over for today, and they’ve gone home.”

  “But—But Aunt Marguerite …” Julie’s eyes searched Ruby’s face, imploring her. “Ruby, what’s wrong with her? She’s acting so strange. She’s—”

  “Shh,” Ruby said, holding a finger to her lips. They were in the foyer now, and Ruby pulled the door closed behind them, then led Julie to the stairs. “She’ll be all right,” she said, though her voice was trembling. “We just have to leave her be, that’s all.”

  “But what’s wrong with her?” Julie insisted. “Why is she acting like that?”

  Ruby sighed, then shook her head. “Things have been hard for her,” she said at last. “She’s like you, honey. She’s just lost her mother. And there’s Mary-Beth too. Miss Marguerite sets a lot of store by her girls, you know. And to lose one like that …” Her voice trailed off as they came to Julie’s room. Ruby guided her back to her bed, tucking the sheet around her once more, then patted her hand reassuringly. “Now, don’t you worry about her. She’ll be all right, and so will you. You just go to sleep, and when you wake up, you’ll have forgotten all about it.”

  She waited a few minutes, and then, once more, the sedative overcame Julie, and her eyes closed. Only when she was certain that the girl was asleep did Ruby leave the room. But instead of going back downstairs to her work, she climbed back to the third floor and opened the door to the ballroom just wide enough to peer through.

  Marguerite, her eyes closed, was still hobbling around the dance floor, her arms held high as if she were embracing an invisible partner.

  The sense of unease she’d tried to conceal from Julie flooded back to Ruby. As she started back down the stairs, she tried not to think of what she knew she must do.

  But perhaps this time it wouldn’t be so bad.

  Perhaps this time Marguerite wouldn’t need to be locked up.

  CHAPTER 16

  Julie woke up late in the afternoon, her body sticky with sweat and her mind vaguely disoriented. At last she rolled over to look at the clock on her bedside table, and was shocked to see that it was nearly six. It seemed only a few minutes ago that she’d fallen asleep—could it really have been seven hours? But it must have been—the strange fogginess she had felt this morning was gone, so the pills must have finally worn off. She lay in bed for a few minutes, waiting for the last vestiges of sleep to clear out of her mind, then got up and went to the window. Her father was down by the barn, his shirt off and his skin glistening as he wielded a rusty scythe against the overgrown weeds that choked the small paddock beside the barn. Julie called out to him, and he looked up and waved.

  “How you feeling?” he shouted, his words drifting up on a gentle breeze coming in from the sea.

  “I’m fine!” Julie called back. “I’m going to take a shower and then I’ll be down.” Before her father could protest, she turned away from the window and went to the bathroom. She stripped off her limp nightgown, turned on the cold water, took a deep breath and stepped into the cool spray. The shock instantly cleared her mind of the last traces of sleepiness, and as she felt the clean water wash the perspiration from her skin, her memories of the morning came back to her.

  Jenny Mayhew had been there, and some of the other girls, but she couldn’t quite remember what she and Jenny had talked about. And then, a little later, she’d gone up to the third floor.

  But it had been strange.

  Her friends were gone, and Marguerite had been dancing by herself. But there had been something strange about her aunt, almost as if Marguerite hadn’t known quite who she was.

  She frowned, lathering herself with soap, and tried to remember more. But there didn’t seem to be any more. Just a sort of half memory, like a dream.

  Her frown cleared and she grinned to herself. That was it—it had been a dream. Aunt Marguerite couldn’t dance, and surely if she’d really gone up there, Marguerite would have known who she was. It must have been the pills, and the music.

  She stepped out of the shower and toweled herself dry, then went back to her bedroom and found a clean pair of jeans and one of her father’s old shirts. Dressed she went downstairs to the kitchen, where Ruby was fixing supper. The aroma of Cajun food filled the room, and Julie lifted the lid off a pot on the stove to peer at the gumbo bubbling inside. Ruby glared at her disapprovingly.

  “What are you doing up? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

  Julie shook her head. “I’m not sick. I feel fine, and I’m not taking anymore of Dr. Adams’s pills. All they do is make me woozy and give me nightmares.” She pulled open one of the drawers near the door to the butler’s pantry. “Is it time to start setting the table?”

  Ruby shrugged. “It isn’t gonna set itself. But only do it for three. Your aunt won’t be down for supper.”

  Julie’s brows knit into a frown. “Is something wrong?”

  “Seems like not much is right today.” Ruby’s eyes rolled heavenward. “You in bed after yesterday, then your brother bumpin’ his head, and now Miss Marguerite, gone to bed with her hip.”

  Julie’s frown deepened. “Wh-What happened?” she said, the dream she’d had that morning suddenly coming back to her.

  Ruby shook her head dolefully and began peeling radishes into the sink as she spoke. “Seems to me you ought to know—you were there. Fool woman was tryin’ to dance. She knows she can’t do that kind of thing no more. But some time there’s just no talking to her. Just like her mother, sometimes.”

  A chill went through Julie. Then it hadn’t been a dream. But why hadn’t her aunt recognized her? “Ruby? Is … well, is there something wrong with Aunt Marguerite? I mean, besides her hip?”

  Finally Ruby turned to face Julie, but her eyes were opaque. “Now what makes you ask a question like that?”

  “It’s just—” Julie began, then fell silent, uncertain how to exp
lain what had happened. “It’s just that this morning, when I went upstairs, it seemed like something was wrong. Aunt Marguerite looked sort of well, sort of strange, I guess. She was talking to me, but it seemed like she didn’t quite know who I was. You know, like I was someone else or something.”

  Ruby said nothing for a moment, then turned back to the sink. “I guess maybe sometimes the pain gets to be too much for her,” she replied at last. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t worry too much about it. She’ll be all right.”

  “Maybe I should go up and see her.”

  Ruby shook her head again. “Just let her be. When her leg starts hurtin’ her, all she wants is to be left alone. I’ll take a tray up to her after a while, and by morning everything will be fine again.”

  The back door opened then, and Kevin, mopping the sweat off his torso with a T-shirt, stepped into the kitchen. He stopped short when he saw Julie, then cocked his head and looked at her critically. Finally he grinned. “Well, at least you’re back in the land of the living. Have you seen your brother yet?”

  Julie shook her head. “Ruby says he bumped his head.”

  “ ‘Bumped’ hardly describes it,” Kevin replied ruefully. “He fell in the basement and cut himself. There was blood all over the place. Didn’t you hear him screaming?”

  Julie shook her head.

  “Well, you were the only one in the county who didn’t, then. Anyway, he’s fine now.” He winked. “Of course, I had to bribe him with a movie tonight.”

  Julie brightened. “Can I go too?”

  “Are you sure you feel up to it?” Kevin asked, his eyes narrowing. “Dr. Adams said you should take it easy.”

  Julie rolled her eyes in exasperation. “I’m all right,” she insisted. “It’s not like I’m sick. And I hate those pills.” She turned on her most appealing smile, and knew immediately the argument was over. “Please?”