“I thought that money could be hidden in that desk. I used my flashlight and set about pulling open each drawer. They were all unlocked. And it was no wonder, because they were all empty—completely empty! This sort of threw me—for why have a desk if you don’t keep it full of junk? Important papers you lock away in a bank vault, or your own private vault; you don’t leave them in locked desk drawers that a clever thief could force open. All those empty drawers without rubber bands, paper clips, pencils, pens, notepads, and other sorts of odds and ends—why have a desk if not for this? You just don’t know the suspicions that jumped into my thoughts. And that’s when I made up my mind. I could look across the long library and see the door to our grandfather’s room. Slowly, I headed that way. I was going to see him at last . . . face to face with the detested grandfather, who was also our half-uncle.
“I pictured our encounter. He’d be on the bed, sick, but hard and still mean and cold as ice. I’d kick open the door, switch on the light, and he’d see me. He’d gasp! He’d recognize me . . . he’d have to know who I was, just one look and he’d know. And I’d say, ‘Here I am, Grandfather—the grandson you never wanted to be born. Upstairs in a locked bedroom of the northern wing, I have two sisters. And once I had a younger brother, but he’s dead now—and you helped kill him!’ All that was in my mind, though I doubt I would really have said any of it. Although you no doubt would have screamed it out—just as Carrie would have if she had the words to express herself—which you do. Still maybe I would have said them, just for the joy of watching him wince, or maybe he would have shown sorrow, or grief, or pity . . . or, more likely, fierce indignation that we were living at all! I know this, I couldn’t stand another minute of being kept a prisoner, and having Carrie pass away like Cory did.”
I held my breath. Oh, the nerve of him, to face up to the detested grandfather, even if he was still lying on his deathbed, and that solid copper coffin was still waiting for him to fill it. I was waiting breathlessly for what came next.
“I turned the knob very cautiously, planning on taking him by surprise, and then I felt ashamed to be so timid, and I thought I would act boldly—and I lifted my foot and kicked open that door! It was so dark in there I couldn’t see a damned thing. And I didn’t want to use the flashlight. I reached inside the door and felt around for a wall switch, but I couldn’t find one. I beamed the flashlight straight ahead and saw a hospital bed painted white. I stared and stared, for I was seeing something I hadn’t expected to see—the blue-and-white-striped ticking of the mattress that was doubled over on itself. Empty bed, empty room. No dying grandfather there, gasping out his last breaths, and connected up to all kinds of machines to keep him alive—it was like a punch in the stomach, Cathy, not to see him there, when I’d prepared myself to meet him.
“In a corner not too far from the bed, was a walking cane, and not so far from the cane was that shiny wheelchair we’d seen him in. It still looked new—he must not have used it often. There was only one piece of furniture besides two chairs, and that was a single dresser . . . and not one item was on the top. No brush, comb, nothing. The room was as neat as the suite of rooms Momma had left, only this was a simple, plain room with paneled walls. And the grandfather’s sickroom had the feel of not being used for a long, long time. The air was stale, musty. Dust was on the dresser top. I ran about, looking for something of value we could hock later on. Nothing—again nothing! I was so full of angry frustration that I dashed back into the library and sought out that special landscape painting Momma told us covered a wall safe.
“Now you know how many times we’ve watched thieves on TV open wall safes, and it seemed to me perfectly simple when you knew how. All you had to do was put your ear to the combination lock, and turn it slowly, slowly, and listen carefully for the betraying clicks . . . and count them . . . I thought. Then you would know the numbers, and dial them correctly—and next, violà! The safe would open.”
I interrupted: “The grandfather—why wasn’t he on the bed?”
He went on as if I hadn’t spoken: “There I was, listening, hearing the clicks. I thought, if I lucked out, and the steel safe did open—it too would be empty. And you know what happened, Cathy? I heard the betraying clicks that told me the combination—hah-hah! I couldn’t count fast enough! Nevertheless, I took the chance of turning the top wheel of the lock, thinking I just might by happenstance come up with the right choice of numbers, in the right sequence. The safe door didn’t open. I heard the clicks, and I didn’t understand. Encyclopedias don’t give you good lessons on how to become a thief—that must come naturally. Then I looked about for something slim and strong to insert into the lock, hoping maybe I could trip a spring that would open the door. Cathy, that was when I heard footsteps!”
“Oh, hell and damnation!” I swore, frustrated for him.
“Right! I quickly ducked behind one of the sofas and fell flat on my stomach—and that’s when I remembered I’d left my flashlight in the grandfather’s small room.”
“Oh, dear God!”
“Right! My goose was cooked, so I thought, but I lay perfectly still and quiet, and into the library strolled a man and a woman. She spoke first and had a sweet-girlish voice.
“ ‘John,’ she said, ‘I swear I’m not just hearin’ things! I did hear noises comin’ from this room.’
“ ‘You’re always hearin’ somethin’,’ complained a heavy, guttural voice. It was John, the butler with the bald head.
“And the bickering pair made a half-hearted search of the library, then the small bedroom beyond, and I held my breath, waiting for them to discover my flashlight, but for some reason they didn’t. I suspect it was because John didn’t want to look at anything but that woman. Just as I was about to get up and make my move to leave the library, they came back, and so help me God, they fell down on the very sofa I was hiding behind! I put my head down on my folded arms and prepared for a nap, guessing you’d be on edge up here, wondering why I didn’t come back. But since you were locked in, I didn’t fear you’d come looking for me. It’s a good thing I didn’t go to sleep.”
“Why?”
“Let me tell it in my own way, Cathy, please. ‘See,’ said John, as they came back to the library and sat on the sofa, ‘didn’t I tell yuh nobody’d be in there or in here?’ He sounded smug, pleased with himself. ‘Really, Livvy,’ he went on, ‘you’re so damned nervous all the time, it takes the pleasure out of this.’
“ ‘But, John,’ she said, ‘I did hear something.’
“ ‘Like I said before,’ John answered, ‘yuh hear too much of what ain’t there. Hell’s bells, jus’ this mornin’ you were speakin’ of mice in the attic again, and how noisy they are.’ John chuckled then, a soft and low chuckle, and he must have done something to that pretty girl to send her into peals of silly giggles, and if she was protesting, she didn’t do a good job of it.
“Then that John, he murmured, ‘That old bitch is killin’ all the little mice in the attic. She carries up to them food in a picnic basket . . . enough food to kill a whole German army of mice.’ ”
You know, I heard Chris say that, and I didn’t think anything unusual, that’s how dumb I was, how innocent and still trusting.
Chris cleared his throat before he continued. “I got a queer feeling in my stomach, and my heart began to make so much noise, I thought that couple on the sofa would surely hear.
“ ‘Yeah,’ said Livvy, ‘she’s a mean, hard old woman, and t’ tell you the truth, I always took to the old man better—at least he knew how to smile. But her—she don’t know how. Time and time ag’in, I come in this room to clean up, and I find her in his room . . . she’s just standing there staring at his empty bed, and she’s got this queer, little tight smile that I take for gloating because he’s dead, and she’s outlived him, and now she’s free, and don’t have nobody ridin’ her back and tellin’ her not to do this, and don’t do that, and jump when I speak. God, sometimes I wonder how she stood him, and he stood
her. But now that he’s dead, she’s got his money.’
“ ‘Yeah, sure, she’s got some,’ said John. ‘She’s got her own money that her family left her. But her daughter, she got all the millions old Malcolm Neal Foxworth left.’
“ ‘Well,’ said Livvy, ‘that old witch, she don’t need no more. Don’t blame the old man for leavin’ his entire estate to his daughter. She put up with a lot of mess from him, makin’ her wait on him hand and foot when he had nurses to hand him things. Still he treated her like some slave. But now she’s free, too, and married to that handsome young husband, and she’s still young and beautiful, and with loads of money. Wonder what it would feel like to be her? Some people, they get all the luck. Me . . . I never had any.’
“ ‘What about me, Livvy, honey? You got me—at least until the next pretty face comes along.’
“And there I was, behind the sofa, hearing all of this, and feeling numb with shock. I felt ready to throw up, but I lay very quiet and listened to that couple on the sofa talk on and on. I wanted to get up and run fast to you and Carrie, and take you out of this place before it was too late.
“But there I was, caught. If I moved they’d see me. And that John, he’s related to our grandmother . . . third cousin, so Momma said . . . not that I think a third cousin matters one way or another, but apparently that John has our grandmother’s confidence, or else she wouldn’t allow him so much freedom to use her cars. You’ve seen him, Cathy, the bald-headed man who wears livery.”
Sure, I knew who he meant, but I could only lie there, feeling my own sort of numb shock that made me speechless.
“So,” Chris went on in that deadly monotone that didn’t show that he was concerned, frightened, surprised, “while I hid behind the sofa, and put my head down on my arms and closed my eyes and tried to make my heart stop beating so damned loud, John and the maid began to get really serious with each other. I heard their little movements as he began to take off her clothes, and she began to work on his clothes.”
“They undressed each other?” I asked. “She actually helped him off with his clothes?”
“It sounded to me that way,” he said flatly.
“She didn’t scream or protest?”
“Heck, no. She was all for it! And by golly, it took them so everlastingly long! Oh, the noises they made, Cathy—you wouldn’t believe it. She moaned and screamed and gasped and panted, and he grunted like a stuck pig, but I guess he must have been pretty good at it, for she shrieked at the end like someone gone crazy. Then, when it was over, they had to lie and smoke cigarettes and gossip about what goes on in this house—and believe me, there’s little they don’t know. And then they made love a second time.”
“Twice in the same night?”
“It’s possible to do.”
“Chris, why do you sound so funny?”
He hesitated, pulled away a bit, and studied my face. “Cathy, weren’t you listening? I went to a great deal of pains to tell you everything just as it happened. Didn’t you hear?”
Hear? Sure, I’d heard, everything.
He’d waited too long to rob Momma of her hoard of hard won jewelry. He should have been taking a little all along, like I’d begged him to do.
So, Momma and her husband were off on another vacation. What kind of news was that? They were always coming and going. They’d do anything to escape this house, and I can’t say I blamed them. Weren’t we prepared to do the same thing?
I screwed up my brows and gave Chris a long questioning look. Obviously he knew something he wasn’t telling me. He was still protecting her; he still loved her.
“Cathy,” he began, his voice jagged and torn.
“It’s all right, Chris. I’m not blaming you. So our dear, sweet, kind, loving mother and her handsome young husband have gone off on another vacation and taken all the jewelry with them. We’ll still get by.” Say good-bye to security in the outside world. But we were still going! We’d work, we’d find a way to support ourselves, and pay doctors to make Carrie well again. Never mind about jewelry; never mind about the callousness of our mother’s act, to leave us without explaining where she was going, and when she was coming back. By now we were accustomed to ugly, harsh, thoughtless indifference. Why so many tears, Chris—why so many?
“Cathy!” he raged, turning his tear-streaked face to lock his eyes with mine. “Why aren’t you listening and reacting? Where are your ears? Did you hear what I said? Our grandfather is dead! He’s been dead for almost a year!”
Maybe I hadn’t been truly listening, not carefully enough. Maybe his distress had kept me from hearing everything. Now it hit me fully for the first time. If the grandfather was truly dead—this was stunning good news! Now Momma would inherit! We’d be rich! She’d unlock the door, she’d set us free. Now we didn’t have to run away.
Other thoughts came flooding, a torrent of devastating questions—Momma hadn’t told us when her father died. When she knew how long these years had been for us, why had she kept us in the dark, waiting always? Why? Bewildered, confused, I didn’t know which emotion to feel: happy, glad, sorry. A strange paralzying fear settled the indecision.
“Cathy,” whispered Chris, though why he bothered to whisper I don’t know. Carrie wouldn’t hear. Her world was set apart from ours. Carrie was suspended between life and death, leaning more toward Cory every moment she starved herself and abandoned the will to live on without her other half. “Our mother deceived us deliberately, Cathy. Her father died, and months later his will was read, and all the while she kept quiet and left us here to wait and rot. Nine months ago we would all have been nine months healthier! Cory would be alive today if Momma had let us out the day her father died, or even the day after the will was read.”
Overwhelmed, I fell into the deep well of betrayal Momma had dug to drown us in. I began to cry.
“Save your tears for later,” said Chris, who had just cried himself. “You haven’t heard everything. There’s more . . . much more, and worse.”
“More?” What more could he tell me? Our mother was proven a liar and a cheat, a thief who’d stolen our youth, and killed Cory in the process of acquiring a fortune she didn’t want to share with children she no longer wanted, or loved. Oh, how well she explained to us what to expect that night when she gave us our little litany to say when we were unhappy. Did she know, or guess, way back then, that she would become the thing the grandfather would make of her? I toppled over into Chris’s arms, and lay against his chest. “Don’t tell me anymore! I’ve heard enough . . . don’t make me hate her more!”
“Hate . . . you haven’t begun to know what hate is yet. But before I tell you the rest, keep in mind we are leaving this place, no matter what. We will go on to Florida, just like we planned. We’ll live in the sunshine and make our lives the very best we can. Not for one moment are we going to feel ashamed of what we are, or what we’ve done, for what we’ve shared between us is so small compared to what our mother has done. Even if you die before I do, I’ll remember our lives up here and in the attic. I’ll see us dancing beneath the paper flowers, with you so graceful, and me so clumsy. I’ll smell the dust and the rotting wood, and I’ll remember it as perfume sweet as roses, because without you it would have been so bleak, and so empty. You’ve given me my first taste of what love can be.
“We’re going to change. We’re going to throw out what’s worse in us and keep what’s best. But come hell or high water, we three will stick together, all for one, one for all. We’re going to grow, Cathy, physically, mentally, and emotionally. Not only that, we’re going to reach the goals we’ve set for ourselves. I’ll be the best damned doctor the world’s ever known and you will make Pavlova seem like an awkward country girl.”
I grew weary of hearing talk of love, and what the future held, possibly, when we were still behind a locked door, and death was lying beside me curled up in fetal position, with small hands praying even in sleep.
“All right, Chris, you’ve given me a breathe
r. I’m prepared for anything. And thank you for saying all of that, and for loving me, for you haven’t gone unloved, or unadmired, yourself.” I kissed him quickly on the lips, and told him to go on, to hit me with his knockout blow.
“Really, Chris, I know you must have something perfectly awful to tell me—so out with it. Keep holding me as you tell me, and I can stand anything you have to say.”
How young I was. How unimaginative—and how confidently presuming.
Endings, Beginnings
Guess what she told them,” Chris continued on. “Name the reason she gave for not wanting this room cleaned on the last Friday of the month.”
How could I guess? I’d need a mind like hers. I shook my head. So long ago the servants had stopped coming to this room, I had forgotten those first horrible weeks.
“Mice, Cathy,” Chris said, his blue eyes cold, hard. “Mice! Hundreds of mice in the attic, our grandmother invented . . . clever little mice that used the stairs to steal down to the second floor. Devilish little mice that forced her to lock this door, leaving in the room—food covered over with arsenic.”
I listened and thought that an ingenious, marvelous story for keeping the servants away. The attic was full of mice. They did use the stairs.
“Arsenic is white, Cathy, white. When mixed with powdered sugar, you cannot taste its bitterness.”
My brain went spinning! Powdered sugar on the four daily doughnuts! One for each of us. Now only three in the basket!
“But, Chris, your story doesn’t make any sense. Why would the grandmother poison us bit by bit? Why not give us a sufficient amount to kill us immediately and have done with it?”
His long fingers went through my hair to cup my head between his palms. He spoke in a low voice: “Think back to a certain old movie we saw on TV. Remember that pretty woman who would keep house for older gentlemen—rich gentlemen, of course—and when she’d won their trust, and affection, and they had written her into their wills, each day she fed them just a little arsenic? When you digest just a fraction of arsenic each day, it is slowly absorbed by your entire system, and each day the victim feels a little worse, but not too much so. The small headaches, stomach upsets that can easily be explained away, so that when the victim dies, say in a hospital, he already is thin, anemic, and has a long history of illnesses, hay fever, colds, and so forth. And doctors don’t suspect poisoning—not when the victim has all the manifestations of pneumonia, or just plain old age, as was the case in that movie.”
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 38