“I didn’t take any diamond brooch, Mr. Endfield, and I would never steal from Mrs. Hudson,” I said firmly. “You want to know what I think,” I said, with hot tears in my eyes, “I think Victoria took it so she could blame me for it and now she is writing that hideous letter.”
“Why would she do that?” he asked, more curious than astounded.
“She never liked me,” I said. “She never wanted me to be there.”
“Taking a diamond brooch and blaming it on you is quite extreme though, isn’t it?” He thought a moment. “Why wouldn’t she just voice her objections and leave it at that?”
“You’ll have to ask Mrs. Hudson,” I said. “Does she know about the letter Victoria has written?”
My heart felt like it would shatter if he said yes.
He gazed at the letter.
“Apparently, not. Victoria makes a point of asking me not to speak to Frances about it,” he said.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” I said. “Mrs. Hudson would be even more enraged about it than I am. Excuse me for being logical, Mr. Endfield,” I said, building my courage, “but what would I do with a big diamond jewel? Do you seriously believe I’m some sort of sophisticated thief who would know how to sell it? And where is all this money if I did do that? You and Mrs. Endfield know that the only money I have here came from Mrs. Hudson.
“Or, am I just to be considered some sort of kleptomaniac because I come from the ghetto and I happen to be a person of color?”
He looked at me and then at the letter.
“I don’t know what to make of this,” he said. “I’m only trying to do the right thing.”
“What is the right thing? Making me feel like a criminal?” I pursued. “Doesn’t a person have any rights here? After the way you spoke, I thought everything was so much better than it was in America, everyone was more civilized. This isn’t very civilized,” I hammered home.
Now, he blinked.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Maybe I was wrong, but I felt I had an obligation and you are living in my house.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Because of what Victoria has written, you think I might steal from you as well?”
Before he could reply, I straightened up and with my arms folded under my breasts followed with, “Do you want me to leave? I’ll pack and be out of here within the hour. Just ask Mrs. Endfield to advance me the rest of my money.”
“Of course not. That isn’t necessary, but I assure you, if it turns out you are a thief. . .”
“You’ll have Boggs flog me,” I said. “I know.”
He almost smiled.
“Please, accept my apologies for now. I will inform Victoria that there is no evidence of any sort of criminal activity and tell her to conduct her investigation in another direction,” he concluded.
“That’s fine, but now, everyone here is going to think I’m a thief,” I moaned.
“I told you. I assure you, Mr. Boggs will not so much as breathe in the direction of those thoughts.”
“Sure,” I said smirking. I pulled back my shoulders and held up my head high again. “I would like a lock on my door. I think I should have at least the most minimum privacy.”
“I’ll see that it is done,” he assured me. “You can prepare for your regular evening duties, and we will not discuss this matter again, unless there is some good reason,” he said and turned around in his chair.
I glared at him a moment and then I marched out. Mr. Boggs was nowhere in sight, but I knew he wasn’t far away. No matter where I went in this house, I felt his eyes on me. Sometimes, I imagined I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.
When I returned to my room, I sat on my bed and stared at the wall. Why did my Aunt Victoria hate me so much? Was it simply jealousy, jealousy of my mother, jealousy of the affection Grandmother Hudson had for me now? Or was viciousness just a natural part of her identity? I was frustrated. I longed to stand in front of her and dare her to make the nasty accusations then.
I was so depressed about it all that I almost forgot to mention anything at dinner about my winning the role of Ophelia. Then, while we served the afters, which this night were individual jam tarts filled with almond paste, something Mrs. Chester called Bakewell tarts, I announced it just to make my great-uncle feel a little more horrible about what he had done.
“I thought you’d like to know I was given a choice part in the upcoming dramatics presentation. Once a month the school has an evening of theater, singing, dancing and chamber music. This one is a week from Saturday and I was given the part of Ophelia from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.”
“Oh, that does sound impressive, dear. Congratulations,” my great-aunt declared with a clap. “Don’t you think that’s impressive, Richard?” she asked him. “Maybe we’ll be able to attend.”
“Yes,” he said. “Good show,” he added, but he didn’t look at me.
“I do hope you’ll be able to attend,” I said. “I’ll be sure to get you tickets.”
He didn’t reply, but Great-aunt Leonora nodded and smiled widely. A moment later, she was moaning about her age spots. She had caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the silver dish and went on and on about the difficulties of growing old.
“The alternative,” my Great-uncle Richard told her in a gruff voice, “is not very appealing.”
She changed the subject and talked about a new restaurant Lord and Lady Batten had discovered. All Great-uncle Richard had to do was suggest his disapproval of a topic and she retreated. Was there ever any real love and passion between these two? I wondered, or had all of it died with their little girl years and years ago? Should I pity them or ignore them? I wondered.
Saturday afternoon, I went to Randall’s dorm to work on my part with him. I had already memorized the lines and practiced reciting them in my room at Endfield Place. Our plan was to work for a few hours and then go to Piccadilly Circus.
“There’s a great pedestrian area. We’ll see all the shops, clubs, theaters, as well as the most visited museum, Guinness World of Records. I’ll show you Her Majesty’s Theatre and the Royal Haymarket Theatre. We can go to a production at one of them next weekend, if you like.”
He talked so fast and so excitedly, rushing about his room to find magazines and brochures with pictures to show me. Suddenly, he paused and looked at me as if he just realized I was in the room, too.
“You look upset today. What’s wrong?” he asked.
Beni used to tell me I was a poor liar because my face was like one of those one-way mirrors. Everyone could look in and see what I was thinking or what I felt and believed, and I never knew how much I was exposing to the world.
“You might as well walk around naked, Rain,” she used to say.
“Maybe I’m not so good an actor after all, Randall,” I said and flopped facedown on his bed.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
I rested my forehead on my arms and closed my eyes. If I pressed them shut hard enough, could I lock out the world? Could I wish and wish and put myself back in time? How I missed Mama and Roy and even my troublesome sister, Beni.
Randall put his hand on my shoulder and sat beside me.
I thought hard about myself. Carrying lies was too burdensome. The weight of deception turned my heart into a lump of lead in my chest. How wonderful it must be to not have to worry about every word you said, not have to be terrified that you will reveal something, that you might accidentally speak the truth.
“The people I’m living with, Mr. Endfield in particular, had my room searched yesterday,” I told Randall bitterly. “He had his man Boggs go through my clothing, my bags, even my undergarments!”
“Why?”
“He received a letter from his wife’s niece accusing me of stealing a diamond brooch from her mother before I left for England,” I said.
Randall didn’t say anything. I turned over and looked up at him.
“I’m no thief, Randall.”
“I know,
” he said. “I was just thinking how horrible it must be for you living with someone who thinks you might be,” he said. He really looked like he was thinking that. In fact, he looked like he might cry for me. “Maybe, you should move into the dorm. There’s another room available.”
“No, there’s no money for that, Randall. I’m all right. I let him know how I felt about it and I think he regrets it,” I said.
“He should,” he said angrily. His beautiful eyes grew even more striking when they filled with anger.
I smiled at him and he looked confused. Then he smiled back and lowered his face until his lips could reach mine. We kissed softly. He lifted his head and looked into my eyes.
“You’re beautiful, Rain,” he said. “You make me think of a rich, mocha sundae.”
I started to laugh and he kissed me again, harder, longer. I reached up and put my hand on the back of his neck and held him. I felt his hand move up the right side of my body to my breast. He sprawled out next to me and moved his lips to my chin and my neck. When his fingers fumbled with the buttons of my blouse, I put my hand on his wrist and pulled back.
“This isn’t helping me prepare for the dramatic recitation,” I said smiling.
“Yes, it is,” he insisted. “Like Catherine and Leslie say, you’ve got to experience it all to be a well-rounded performer.”
“That sounds more like the argument for lovemaking a boy would use,” I told him, but I kissed the tip of his nose and he kissed me again.
Maybe I was just tired of being sad and angry, or maybe I felt stronger about Randall than I had anticipated, but suddenly, I wanted to give in, to abandon all defenses, to drop my arms and turn my head and moan and let him peel off my clothing, kissing every uncovered place until I was naked. He stood up and took off his own clothes quickly.
The taste of his lips on mine, the way he stirred me inside, the swirling in my head were all so wonderful, I did feel that for a few moments anyway, I was escaping all the darkness and deceit. I was someplace else where honest feelings were all that mattered, where words were molded by the rhythms in my heart and not by the workings of my mind.
“We’ve got to be careful,” I whispered into his ear when I felt him shifting his hips to find a comfortable position so that he could bring us together as intimately as any two people could be. “Don’t you have protection?”
“No,” he said, “but don’t worry. I promise I won’t let anything happen, Rain. I promise,” he said, he pleaded. I wanted to push him away. Everything told me I had to, but the passion that raged in me wasn’t much less than what was driving him.
He entered me. I gasped.
“Randall!” I cried. “We’ll get into trouble and I can’t afford another bit of it!”
He moved quickly and then he pulled out and spent himself on the bed, between my legs, moaning. I waited for my heart to stop flailing about in my chest so that my blood would cool and slow its flow. Then I touched his hair and waited for him to catch his own breath.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m such an idiot. Leslie and Catherine wanted to give me some rubber Johnnies, but I was too embarrassed to take them. I should have gotten my own. I’m such an idiot.”
“Rubber Johnnies?”
“That’s what they call them here,” he said and I started to laugh. I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh harder and harder until tears spilled from my eyes.
He lifted his head and smiled at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I said, sitting up and reaching for my clothes. Then I started to laugh again.
He laughed, too, although he didn’t know why. He thought I was just laughing at the funny name for a condom.
I wasn’t really laughing. I was crying with a smile on my face. I was so lost. Even when I was making love, I felt so lost.
Until I knew who I was, until I stood up proudly and said my name; until I could look into the mirror and see through the mask, I wouldn’t be able to feel anything, I thought, not the way all this should be felt.
When I stopped laughing and just wiped tears from my cheeks, Randall stared at me, confused.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“No,” I said.
“I’m sorry. You’re upset with me. I’m such an idiot.”
“It’s not you, Randall.”
“Then what is it?” he asked.
“It’s the big lie,” I replied.
“What big lie?”
“Me,” I said. “To be or not to be, remember?”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
I hesitated and then I pulled the blanket over myself and began, and as I told him my story, my true story, it felt as if a weight was being lifted from my chest.
8
Disturbing Revelations
Randall lay back on a pillow with his hands behind his head listening attentively to my story. He didn’t interrupt; he didn’t ask a question; he didn’t speak until I stopped talking, took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment. What drained me was not the length of time it took or even the revisiting of highly emotional moments. No, what sapped my spirit and energy was revealing to another person that my mother, my real mother, had given birth to me and then given me away as easily as she might have given away an old pair of shoes. If Mama Arnold hadn’t contacted my real mother on my behalf last year, we might never have met. Her life wouldn’t have changed an iota, not that I thought it had anyway. She claimed that she often thought of me, but I didn’t really believe that and after all, she was still doing all she could to keep my existence top secret.
If anyone should suffer from a poor self-image and lack of self-confidence, I thought, it should be me, and those were two things you needed to have in tiptop condition if you were going to become an actress and perform before thousands of people judging you, measuring you along with critics who had microscopes for eyes.
“So,” Randall finally said, “the people you are living with, here are really your relatives, but they don’t know it?”
“That’s right. Mr. and Mrs. Endfield are my great-uncle and great-aunt, but Grandmother Hudson thought it would be better if they didn’t know. The Endfields like being thought of as magnanimous and my Great-aunt Leonora won’t be outdone by my grandmother when it comes to charitable acts, especially one as dramatic as this,” I told him. “She brags to all her friends that she has an au pair from America.”
“But wouldn’t it be better for you if they knew? I mean, maybe you wouldn’t have to be a servant,” he said, “and you could spend all your time on your studies.”
“To tell you the truth, Randall, I don’t know if it would be better. I have the feeling Grandmother Hudson, who knows them a lot better than I do, believes they probably wouldn’t let me live with them. They’d consider it all a big disgrace and ask me to leave. I’m surprised my Aunt Victoria hasn’t told them the truth about me just so she could see that take place. She’s probably torn between being happy I’m here and unhappy my grandmother cares so much about me and does so much for me.”
“If she had never met you before and never even knew you existed, why does she hate you? Is it simply because she’s prejudiced or. . .”
“I don’t know if it’s me or it’s just that she hates her sister, my mother, and therefore anything or anyone connected with her. Except,” I said thinking aloud, “I don’t get the feeling she dislikes my mother’s husband. It’s complicated,” I said, reaching for my clothing. “It gives me a headache just thinking about it all.”
Randall continued to look deep in thought, and then his face suddenly brightened with an idea. I could practically see the lightbulb flash above his head.
“You said your mother told you that your real father came to London to write and to teach, right?”
“Yes.” I clipped on my bra and slipped on my panties. Randall remained as he was, still thinking, his hands still behind his head, his gaze fixed on the ceiling.
“And y
our mother told you he was fond of Shakespeare and wanted to be a Shakespearean scholar and teacher? Isn’t that what you said?”
“That’s what she said, but I don’t know whether to believe anything she told me,” I said and finished dressing.
Randall lowered his gaze to me, his face even more animated and excited.
“Why don’t we see if we can find him?”
“What? Find whom?”
“Your father. You said you knew his name, Larry Ward. It shouldn’t be impossible to locate him. We can start with the greater London phonebook and call every Larry Ward listed,” he said.
I shook my head. The very idea put icicles in my heart.
“And do what, ask each one if he’s the man who had an affair with a Megan Hudson back when he was in college?”
“Maybe he succeeded and became an English teacher, a Shakespearean scholar, just like he had intended. That would pinpoint him, wouldn’t it? How many black guys have come over from America to study Shakespeare, Rain? It’s not going to be that hard to find him, if he’s still here, that is. What do you say?”
I shook my head more emphatically.
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? Don’t you want to meet him? Don’t you want him to meet you? I would, if it was me.”
“What would I say to him if we did find him, Randall? Hi, I’m your daughter, the daughter you never hung around to see, you never cared about? No thanks. I don’t need another devastating scene. I’ve been rejected once, and pretty firmly too, at birth. I couldn’t take it again, especially face to face,” I said.
“Maybe it wouldn’t be like that. Come on, Rain, don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious about him.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t, but. . .”
“So what harm can it do to find him? After we are sure it’s your father, you can decide whether or not you want to meet him and tell him who you are, but first things first. I’d be glad to help you,” he said.
“Why?” I smiled at him. “Why is this suddenly so important to you?”
“I don’t know.” He looked at me. “I want to do it for you. I want to do something. . . significant,” he said.
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