Then I started undressing. I gave a few thoughts to the provisions in the refrigerator which, of course, would be spoiled and useless. A sizeable expenditure gone to naught.
But I was too whacked out to worry much about it. There were other things to occupy my mind. Namely, who hit me when the lights went out?
What hand had reached out and cracked my head open?
Caroline’s words: “That someone, in my house …”
I crept into bed like a whipped dog, bruised, punished, and with a million questions, all of them unanswerable.
But my thoughts were swiftly tabled as I fell into a deep sleep. In the morning I woke with a stiff neck and a frown on my face; there was a steady, nagging ache at the back of my head. When I touched the lump it was so painful that tears sprang to my eyes.
I automatically reached for the bedside clock. Oh, I thought then, it isn’t going, the electricity’s off.
But it was going, all right. I switched on a lamp, and it flowered into brightness; the electricity was on again.
That, at least, was something, I thought, and called Caroline. Claire answered, and as soon as I heard her voice I knew there was something wrong.
Her voice was strained and choked, almost a whisper. I said, “Claire? What is it, what’s wrong?”
“Oh, Miss Jennie,” she said brokenly. “She’s very sick.”
“Who? Who’s sick?” I asked.
“Miss Caroline,” she said. “The doctor is here. He said …”
“Yes, what?”
“A stroke. It’s a stroke. She’s very sick.”
She didn’t even say good-bye, and I sat there holding the receiver, with no one at the other end.
21.
Emily let me in.
“How is she?” I asked.
She shrugged. “As well as can be expected,” she said.
“Emily, I’m sorry, but what does that mean?”
She stared at me. “After all, she’s in her eighties,” she said, impatiently.
I went inside and found others. Bobo was there, in a maribou housecoat that made her look like an oldtime Ziegfeld girl. Her ripe, lush face, innocent of makeup, looked dewy and round. “Caroline’s had a stroke,” she told me.
“I know, I’ve heard.”
“I suppose she’ll die.”
I looked at her. “Why should she die?” I asked. “You can have a stroke and not die.”
“But after all, she’s in her eighties.”
I brushed past her.
The house was filled. Garry, Kathy and Lester sat, as at the reading of a will, with eyes downcast and that kind of solemn mien you find at condolence calls. All looked up as I entered, and gave me a nod of recognition. Then they all fell to contemplating again.
I didn’t stay with them: I went upstairs, and found Tony in the upper hallway, outside the closed door of Caroline’s room. “How is she?” I asked him.
“We don’t know yet.”
“Is the doctor in there?”
“Yes.”
“When did this happen?”
“It’s hard to say. Claire found her almost comatose when she went in with the breakfast tray.”
“It could be slight,” I said. “Lots of people have minor strokes, and it hardly changes their lives.”
He didn’t say anything, and I sagged. “You think it’s serious?” I asked him.
“No way of knowing until we talk to the doctor.”
After what seemed a very long time Caroline’s bedroom door was thrown open and the doctor who had attended me came out, closing the door behind him. His eyes traveled to me and he smiled. “Well, you look blooming,” he told me. “None the worse for wear.”
“I’m fine. How about Caroline, doctor?”
He was cheery. “We’ll see how she responds tomorrow.”
“She had a stroke, I was told.”
“Yes.”
“Is it … has she had other strokes?”
“No,” he said, and then lifted his shoulders. “Well, that is to say, not to my knowledge. My dear girl, people of her age, and much younger, I might add, have many small strokes, undetectable.”
I swallowed. “This is not … a small stroke?”
He regarded me levelly. Then he shrugged again. “No, this isn’t minor,” he admitted.
“Is it massive?” I asked.
He gave me a really unpleasant look. “May I ask what your interest is?” he said to me.
Tony stepped forward. “I consider that uncalled for,” he said evenly. “Miss Steward and I are her friends. We would like to know on that account. We are both her house guests, and friends of long standing.”
The man hesitated.
“Is it massive?” I asked again. “Will she be paralyzed?”
He started walking toward the stairs. Then, at the head of them, he turned. “Yes,” he said, shortly. “Though the paralysis could be only temporary in duration.”
“What brought it on?” I demanded, following him.
He looked at me with utter contempt. Then he spoke. “My dear young lady,” he said. “You might as well ask what brings on a thunderstorm. Ask why mongoloids are born. I’m sorry, but that’s an asinine question. Good day,” he added, coldly, and went down the stairs.
“Idiot bastard,” Tony said furiously.
But I stood there, shattered. A massive stroke. Paralyzed, perhaps permanently. That awful, wonderful crazy, profane, remarkable woman.
Her proud spirit at last broken.
“We both need a drink,” Tony said.
I tried to stop shaking. He saw my shuddering. “Stop that,” he said sharply. “You’re to stop that, you hear?”
“I’m trying to,” I told him.
But somehow everything seemed to be my fault. As though, if I hadn’t come to the Lestrange compound, none of it would have happened. And I had to pass the others on my way out. Kathy, and her husband Lester, and Garrison, Bobo. Their eyes seemed to follow me, accusingly — the interloper, the intruder. They all looked as if they were thinking the same thing …
• • •
But not long after my self-accusatory reflections, I came to decide that the Lestranges — or most of them — were like vultures. Cruel, predatory birds hovering over the stricken body of a victim, waiting for its death … at which point they would swoop and pounce, their great wings flapping, ugly, bare necks craning, eyes bright and avaricious.
When they made sure that the body was inert forever, then they would settle, terrible rejoicers of death’s victory, and pick the carcass clean.
All the Lestranges who rarely called on Caroline, who left her to her own devices, lonely and distant, were now clustering constantly in her house, a house that was in these days shuttered and dim, the sunlight closed out. And like those loathsome birds, were waiting … waiting for the news that the acknowledged head of the family had gasped her last. They were biding their time for what came next.
The reading of the will.
For two days I didn’t see her. Her room was a sickroom: there were nurses around the clock, and even Emily was persona non grata.
As I was, with the rest of the family. Even Bobo, who had sought me out as someone up her alley, so to speak, an outsider whose presence was merely tolerated, was aloof and distant, turning away from me whenever she saw me. Et tu, Brute, I said to myself wryly.
This applied to Tony as well. It was a time of punishment for him, too. The two of us, like tares in a Biblical garden, were unacceptable, coldly unacknowledged. And if it hadn’t been for Peter, I would have stayed away from Caroline’s house entirely. But Peter, ignoring the chilly demeanor of the others, was by my side constantly. He had not returned to the city after the weekend, but had remained, and every day dashed over to Caroline’s house to note the progress of the invalid.
Watching the Lestranges, out of the corner of my eye, I saw their disbelief at the doctor’s news. On the afternoon of the third day of Caroline’s illness, he confr
onted them with a triumphant smile on his face, saying, “She’s very much better. Very much better … and the paralysis is slowly diminishing.”
After a brief silence, Garrison Lestrange said, “But doctor, after all, her age … surely you must regard her as terminal?”
“Terminal?” the doctor repeated. “What’s terminal? We’re all terminal, Mr. Lestrange. Life is terminal, isn’t it? We all end up in a coffin.”
Garrison Lestrange made an impatient sound between his teeth. “Are you telling us that Caroline will get well? I mean, really well?”
“Why, her recovery is — ”
I left them then, and went back to my cottage. I didn’t want to hear any more. I sat down on my patio, after making myself a stiffish drink, and breathed deeply. I was conscious of a slight lift of my spirits. He had said Caroline was not terminal, and that some of her paralysis had left her. I had, in my depression, been sure she would die. Now, it seemed, there was an excellent chance she would not.
Good for her, I thought. Good for her! And the Lestranges, with their solemn faces, waiting for the death throes, so they could divide the property and enrich themselves at her expense … now I knew what she had meant … now I knew their avidity.
She was right all the time, I thought, and was sitting there reflecting on their duplicity when my front doorbell rang.
It was Peter, and he said, “Hello, Jan. Caroline seems to be on the mend, and now we know that, how about going somewhere? It’s all been a bit wearing; let’s get away for a little, okay?”
“She might ask for me,” I said.
“I don’t think she’s reached that point yet. Come, let’s have an afternoon away from this place.”
“She might need me … or … or someone. Shouldn’t we — ”
“No,” he said. “She’s not ready for us yet. Not yet, Jan. She’s a strong woman, when all’s said and done. If she wants to live, she’ll live. If she doesn’t, she’ll probably succeed in not living. We’re not needed yet.”
I felt my eyes fill with tears, and turned away. Crying isn’t my style, but it was his way of saying things that undid me. If she wants to she will, if she doesn’t, she won’t. I knew it was true. And for the first time I cried.
It was not only what he said, and how he said it: it was the fact of him being there, when Eric was not, and just when I needed someone. When I was alone, and needed someone.
He held me in his arms and rocked me a little, and I knew I would always love Peter — if not romantically — at least in some very important way, for as long as I knew him.
And I wouldn’t forget him.
He made a try at that point. After a while he said, very quiet and earnest, “I’m not a bad bet, Jan. I’d give you everything that’s good in me. Could you give it some thought?”
I couldn’t answer, and after a while he said, “Well, all right, maybe it’s not the right time. But I’m not speaking out of turn, you know. Caroline told me about what happened between you and — ”
“And what’s-his-name? I’m afraid, Peter, he’s in absentia only conditionally,” I said. “There’s nothing final about it.”
“I see.”
I wiped my eyes, blew my nose and got up. “Let’s go for a drive; I’m all for it,” I said. “An hour or two away from here won’t change the course of things. Let’s have a few drinks somewhere, I’m game.
• • •
At just after eight that evening I had a call from Tony.
“She’s asking for you,” he said. “Come on over.”
“Caroline?”
“Yes, Caroline. She’s alive and kicking and wanting to know where you are. So I suggest you waste no time. She doesn’t like to be kept waiting, as I know, and I’m sure you know.”
Only seconds later I was running up the flagstone path. I felt so sure. It was as if some metaphysical force were enlightening me … that Caroline was all right again, and would go on being all right. I knew it. I felt I knew it.
That Caroline wasn’t going to die.
22.
It was certainly a good recovery: aside from a partial paralysis on her right side — which affected her arm, and made her mouth sag at one corner — Caroline was once again her old, prideful self on the fourth day after her stroke.
Yet in certain ways there was a subtle deterioration. Her attitude toward her family, which had always been one of contemptuous arrogance, had changed from cold annoyance to outright anger, and hatred. It was easy to see why: they had begun regular visits to her house while she convalesced, as if they were showing up for the latest football scores … and I, who had known their previous indifference and lack of concern, could only add affirmation to her scornful assessments of them.
“They’re keeping a death watch,” she cried, her eyes glittering. “They can’t believe I’m getting well. At my advanced age? They want to see with their own eyes what my condition is. They think I’ll take a turn for the worse, and, before I do, they want to show me how affected they are. Poor, sick Caroline! They want me to be aware of their deep love and anxiety.”
Her hands trembled with anger. “You know how they really are,” she cried. “You saw them, you’re a witness to the whole thing. Have they smothered me with attention before now? Have they?” she demanded, thrusting her head forward.
She didn’t wait for an answer, but rushed on. “Look at them now! Flowers, and calls, and all sickish smiles and saying how worried they were. Aren’t they fiendish?”
She ran out of breath and sank back against her pillows.
“Don’t think about all that,” I told her. “Don’t you want to get good and well? Your only concern should be Caroline Lestrange. Getting the full use of your arm back, and leaving this bed.”
“Oh, Jennie.” She sighed. “My God, in what strange and mysterious ways does He work, His wonders to perform. Do you realize that if you hadn’t been here, I’d be going through this all alone?”
“That’s silly,” I pointed out. “Tony’s here, and Emily. You’re not alone.”
“Tony. Emily.” She was unconvinced. “They’re no better than the others.”
“Why do you say that?”
Her glance was scornful. “Use your head,” she said impatiently. “Tony? Why do you suppose he visits me on occasional summers? To — ” She mimicked what he had said. “To spend large chunks of his time with a lonely old lady?”
“He said that in the heat of anger,” I reminded her. “If you’re so sure he expects a large legacy from you, he’d get it anyway, even if he didn’t visit you on occasional summers. Isn’t that so?”
She declined to answer, simply looked vexed and cross.
“And Emily waits on you hand and foot. If anything happened to you she’d be out of a job.”
“And wouldn’t need one,” Caroline said snappishly. “She knows I’ll take care of her financially.”
I gave up. I just kept reminding her that the important thing was to get well. And two days later she was up and around, the paralysis lessening with each passing day. Only the droop at the corner of her mouth remained, and privately I thought it would stay. And felt very sorry. One more blow to her vanity, a distortion of her face.
One day, in her sunroom, in front of Tony and Emily, she announced, with a small sadistic smile, that she had written her lawyer. We had been chatting idly, with Emily at her eternal petit point, and Tony — looking handsome and golden-haired in one of his regional Basque shirts — lolling decoratively, his long legs swung over the arm of his chair. He had brought Caroline a single, long-stemmed, crimson rose, all dewy with moisture, its blushing petals glistening. He had handed it to her with a bow.
“A beautiful flower to a beautiful lady,” he said, his arm sweeping across his chest like a cavalier. He was so good to look at that it made my heart ache at that moment. I really wondered, quite seriously, if I shouldn’t forget about Eric, and every other man, and fight tooth and claw to become the Viscountess Cavendish.
His troubadour gesture was wasted. Caroline, regarding the rose as if it had been Cleopatra’s asp, said, very cruelly and succinctly, “The beautiful flower has ugly thorns. And, my dear, you look frightfully silly in that grotesque position. Doesn’t he look utterly ridiculous, Jennie?”
He didn’t, but he did as he straightened up, trying to hold on to some dignity in the face of this affront. He looked foolish, awkward, and stunned. Hurt … and very, very angry.
I got up, not answering Caroline, and went over to Tony for the flower.
“I’ll put it in water,” I said. “And Tony, it is lovely.”
“And it comes from my garden,” Caroline interpolated, with an unpleasant smile. “So much for sentimental gifts from gallant young gentlemen.”
Her gaze swept us all, in a kind of jubilant, encompassing way. “You can’t fool Caroline, not for very long, at any rate, though some think they can make mush of me. Well, that simply is not true, and to those who think it is, je m’en fiche.”
She sat back, and her voice deepened. “Ah yes, and by the way,” she said — and that small, mean smile came over her face — “I’ve contacted my attorney; I’ve a few things to discuss with him. I shall put my house in order … once and for all. Maybe it’s just as well I almost died. It’s taught me a lesson. I’ve been a blind woman — blind and passive. Well, I’ve more brains than that. I’m not a complete idiot.”
If she expected an answer, she was doomed to disappointment. No one spoke. This seemed to needle her, and her voice rose.
“I’ve learned my lesson,” she said again. “And about time, just damned well about time.”
Emily went on with her petit point, scarcely glancing up, but I noted that her hands were moving more slowly. As for Anthony, he simply sat quietly, gazing out the window, his long legs stretched out indolently. And as if further goaded by the lack of interest in her announcement, Caroline’s voice rose shrilly.
“I have millions to leave,” she cried. “Millions! Maybe you weren’t sure of it before, but now you can be, because I’m telling you! And they won’t be left to ingrates! My money will go to someone who has given me joy and fulfillment in the last rotten years of my life … do you understand, Jennie? And the hell with the rest of them.”
Classic Love: 7 Vintage Romances Page 119