The road was dappled with sunlight and shadows, and soon enough Bart and his temper were far behind me. The sun burned down hot on top of my head, and behind me little feet came running. I turned to see Clover racing to catch up. Waiting, I knelt to catch him as he leaped into my arms, licking my face with the same devoted adoration he’d given me since I was three.
Three years old. I remembered where Mom and I had lived then, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, in a little cottage nestled down near the mountains. I remembered a tall man with dark eyes had given me not only Clover but also a cat named Calico, and a parakeet we called Buttercup. Calico had roamed off in the night and never came back. And Buttercup had died when I was seven. “Would you like to be my son?” I heard the man’s voice in my memory. That man who was called . . . What was his name? Bart? Bart Winslow? Oh, golly, was I just beginning to understand something that had slipped over my head until now? Was my half brother Bart the son of that man, and not Daddy Paul? Why would Mom name her baby for a man not her husband?
“You gotta go back home now, Clover,” I said, and he seemed to understand. “You’re eleven years old and not up to frisking around in the noonday sun. Go back and find your favorite cool place and wait for me, okay?”
Wagging his tail, he turned obediently and headed home, looking back often to see if I’d turn away and he could follow again. I watched until he was out of sight around the bend in the road. Then I headed once more for the huge old mansion. In my head the distant past beat like muffled drums, reminding me of events I’d forgotten. The ballet on Christmas Eve, and the handsome man who gave me my first electric train. I shut off memories, wanting to keep my mother sacred, my love for Daddy Paul intact, my respect for Chris intact too. No, I wasn’t going to let myself remember too much.
Lovers came and went in everyone’s life, I told myself, if ballets were just true stories exaggerated a bit. And like my dad would, I strode boldly up to the iron fence and demanded into the box to be let in. The iron gates swung silently open, like jail bars to beckon me forward. I almost ran up the curving drive until I was before the double front doors, and there I jabbed at the doorbell, then banged the brass knocker as loud as I could.
Impatiently I waited for that crotchety old butler to show up. Behind me the iron gates had closed. I felt like I was walking into a trap. Gee, just like Bart and his imagination that gave him fun, I used my ballet background to write this script. I felt like some wretched, unwanted prince who didn’t possess the magic password. Only Bart knew that.
Confusion and regrets brewed and unsettled my determination. This didn’t seem the castle of some wicked fairy queen, only the big, outdated home of a lonely old woman who needed Bart just as much as he needed her. But she couldn’t be his grandmother, she just couldn’t be. That grandmother was way back in Virginia, locked up for something terrible she’d done once.
Quiet was all around me, smothering me, making me feel old. My home was full of noises from the kitchen, music, clover barking, Cindy squealing, Bart shouting, and Emma bossing. Not even a squeak came from this house. Nervously I shuffled my feet about, thinking I might give up my idea of confronting her. Then I glimpsed a dark shadow behind one of the windows draped with sheer curtains. I shivered. Almost left. But just then the door opened a crack, enough to allow the butler to put a squinty watery eye to the slit. “You can enter,” he said inhospitably, “but don’t you stay too long. Our lady is frail and tires easily.”
I asked her name, tired of calling and thinking of her as old woman, or woman in black. My request was ignored. The butler intrigued me with his shuffling gait, his suggestion of a limp, his bald pate that was pink and shiny. His thin white mustache hung in long strands on either side of his grim lips. But as old as he was, and as weak as he appeared, he still managed to convey a scary, sinister air.
He beckoned me onward, but I hesitated. Then he smiled cynically, showing his too large, too even, and too yellow teeth. I squared my shoulders and followed him bravely, thinking I could set everything straight and our lives would be as happy as they’d been before they came to live in this house that used to be ours alone.
I didn’t know suspicions were in my head. I thought it was only curiosity.
The room she always used surprised me again, though I couldn’t say exactly why. Maybe it was because she kept her drapes drawn together on such a beautiful summer day. Behind the drapes the window shutters were closed, making bars of light on the window coverings. The shutters and the drapes held the heat outside at bay, making her parlor unexpectedly chill. There was no real need for air-conditioning in our area. The nearby Pacific kept our weather cool, making sweaters in the evenings a real necessity, even in the middle of summer. But this house was unnaturally cold.
Again she was in that wooden rocker staring at me. Her thin hand made some welcoming gesture to draw me closer. I knew instinctively she was a threat to my parents, to my own security, and most of all to Bart’s mental health.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, Jory,” she said in a sweet voice. “My home belongs to you as much as to Bart. I will always welcome you here. Sit down and chat for a while. Will you share a cup of tea with me, and a slice of cake?”
Beguiled, our word yesterday to add to our growing vocabulary Daddy insisted upon. “The world belongs to those who know how to speak well, and fortunes are made by those who write well,” he’d said.
I admit, she beguiled me, that woman in her hard rocker, sitting so old and yet so proud. “Why don’t you open your shutters, pull your drapes, and let in some light and air?” I asked.
Her nervous gestures brought into play the sparkling rays of the many gems she wore. Rubies, emeralds, and diamonds on her fingers, each color spectrum. Her jewels seemed so out of place when she had to wear that plain black chiffon—but today her eyes were revealed, her blue, blue eyes. Such familiar blue eyes.
“Too much light hurts my eyes,” she explained in a faint husky whisper when I kept staring.
“Why?”
“Why does the light hurt my eyes?”
“Yes.”
Her sigh was small. “For a long time I lived locked away from the world, shut up in a small room, but even worse than that, locked up within myself. When you are forced to encounter yourself for the first time in your life, you draw back from the shock. I recoiled when first I looked deep within myself, staring in a mirror they had in my room, and I was frightened. So now I live in rooms full of mirrors, but I cover my face so I can’t see too much. I keep my rooms dim as I no longer admire the face I used to adore.”
“Then take down the mirrors.”
“How easy you make it. But you are young. The young always think everything is easy. I don’t want to take down the mirrors. I want them there to remind me constantly of what I’ve done. The closed windows, the stuffy atmosphere are my punishments, not yours. If you want, Jory,” she went on as I sat silently, “open the windows, spread the shutters; let in the sunlight and I will take off my veils and let you look at the face I hide from—but you won’t find it pleasant. My beauty is gone, but it is a small loss compared to everything else that has come and gone, all the things I should have held on to valiantly.”
“Valiantly?” I asked. That was a word not too familiar to me in any meaningful way, just a word suggesting bravery.
“Yes, Jory, valiantly I should have protected what was mine. I was all they had, and I let them down. I thought I was right, they were wrong. I convinced myself each day I was right. I resisted their pitiful pleas, and even worse, at the time I didn’t even think they were pitiful. I told myself I was doing all I could because I brought them everything. They grew to distrust me, dislike me, and that hurt, hurt more than any pain I’ve ever felt. I hate myself for being weak, so cowardly, so foolishly intimidated when I should have stood my ground and fought back. I should have thought only of them and forgotten what I wanted for myself. My only excuse is that I was young then, and the young are se
lfish, even when it comes to their own children. I thought my needs were greater than theirs. I thought their time would come and then they could have their way. I felt it was my last chance at happiness. I had to grab for it quick, before middle age made me unattractive, and there was a younger man I loved. I couldn’t tell him about them.”
Them? Who was she talking about?
“Who?” I asked weakly, for some reason wishing she wouldn’t tell me anything—or at least not too much.
“My children, Jory, My four children, fathered by my first husband, whom I married when I was only eighteen. He was forbidden to me, and yet I wanted him. I thought I never would find a man more wonderful . . . and yet I did find one just as wonderful.”
I didn’t want to hear her story. But she pleaded for me to stay. I sat on the edge of one of her fine chairs.
“So,” she continued, “I put my fear out in front, allowed my love for a man to blind me to their needs, and I ignored what they wanted—their freedom—and now, as the result, I cry myself to sleep every night.”
What could I say? I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I reasoned she must be crazy, and no wonder Bart was acting just as nutty. She leaned forward to peer at me more closely.
“You are an exceptionally handsome boy. I suppose you know that already.”
I nodded. All my life I’d heard remarks about my good looks, my talent, my charm. But talent was what counted, not looks. In my opinion looks without talent were useless. I knew, too, that beauty faded with the passing years, but still I loved beauty.
Looking around, I saw this woman loved beauty as much as I did, and yet . . . “What a pity she sits in the dark and refuses to enjoy all that’s been done to make this place beautiful,” I murmured without thought.
She heard and replied tonelessly, “The better to punish myself.”
I didn’t reply, only sat on in the chair while she rambled on and on about her life as a poor little rich girl who made the mistake of falling in love with her half uncle, who was three years older, and for this she was disinherited. Why was she telling me her life history? I didn’t care. What did her past have to do with Bart? He was my reason for being here.
“I married for a second time. My four children hated me for doing that.” She stared down at her hands folded on her lap, then began to twist the sparkling gems one by one. “Children always think adults have it so easy. That’s not always true. Children think a widowed mother doesn’t need anyone but them.” She sighed. “They think they can give her enough love, because they don’t understand there are all kinds of love, and it’s hard for a woman to live without a man once she’s been married.”
Then, almost as if she’d forgotten me, she jolted to see me there. “Oh! I’ve been a poor hostess. Jory, what would you like to eat and drink?”
“Nothing, thank you. I came only to tell you that you must not encourage Bart to come over here anymore. I don’t know what you tell him, or what he does here, but he comes home with weird ideas, acting very disoriented.”
“Disoriented? You use large words for a boy so young.”
“My father insists we learn one new word each day.”
Those nervous hands of hers flitted up to her throat to play with her string of large pearls with a diamond butterfly clasp. “Jory, if I ask you a hypothetical question, would you give me an answer—a truthful answer?”
I got up to go. “I’d really rather not answer questions . . .”
“If your mother or your father ever disappointed you, failed you in some way, even a major one—could you find it in your heart to forgive them?”
Sure, sure, I thought quickly enough, though I couldn’t imagine them ever failing me, Bart, or Cindy. I backed to the door that would allow me to leave while she was waiting for my answer. “Yes, Madame, I think I could forgive them anything.”
“Murder?” she asked quickly, standing too. “Could you forgive them for that? Not premeditated murder, but accidental?”
She was crazy, just like her butler. I wanted to get out of there, and fast! I cautioned her one more time to send my brother home. “If you want Bart to stay sane, leave him alone!”
Her eyes teared before she nodded and inclined her head. I’d hurt her, I knew that. I had to harden my heart not to say I was sorry. Then, just as I was leaving, a deliveryman was banging on the door, and I opened to allow him to carry in a huge oblong crate. It took two men to rip off the nailed cover.
“Don’t go, Jory,” she begged. “Stay! I’d like you to see what’s inside this crate.”
What difference did it make? But I stayed, having the same curiosity as most people about the contents of a closed box.
The old butler came tapping down the hall, but she shooed him away, “John! I didn’t ring for you. Please stay in your part of the house until you’re sent for.”
He gave her a smoldering look of resentment and hobbled into his hole, wherever that was.
By this time the crate was open, and the two men were pulling out packing straw. Then they lifted a huge thing wrapped in a gray quilt from its nest in the crate.
It was like waiting for a ship to be launched. I grew sort of breathless in anticipation, even more so because she had such a look on her face . . . as if she couldn’t wait for me to see the contents. Was she giving me a gift, like she gave Bart anything he wanted? He was the greediest little boy ever born, needing double the amount of affection most people required.
I gasped then and stepped backward.
It was an oil painting the men unwrapped.
There stood my beautiful mother in a formal white gown, pausing on the next to the bottom step with her slender hand resting on a magnificent newel post. Trailing behind her lay yards and yards of the shimmering white fabric. The curving stairs behind her rose gracefully and faded into swirling mists through which the artist had cleverly managed to give the impression of gold and glittering jewels, hinting at a palace-like mansion.
“Do you know whose portrait that is?” she asked when the men had hung it in place in one of the parlors she didn’t seem to use often. I nodded, dumbfounded and speechless.
What was she doing with my mother’s portrait?
She waited for the two men to go. They smiled, thrilled with the tip she gave them. I was panting, hearing my heavy breathing and wondering why I felt sort of numb. “Jory,” she said softly, turning again to me, “that’s a portrait of me that my second husband commissioned shortly after we were married. I was thirty-seven when I posed for that.”
In the portrait the woman looked just like my mother looked today. I swallowed and wanted to run, suddenly needing the bathroom badly, but still I wanted to stay. I wanted to hear her explain, even though I was paralyzed with the fear of what she might tell me.
“My second husband, who was younger, was named Bartholomew Winslow, Jory,” she said quickly, as if to make sure I heard before I got up and ran. “Later on, when my daughter was old enough, she seduced him, stole his love away from me, just so she could hurt me with the child she gave him. The child I couldn’t have. Can you guess who that child is, can you?”
I jumped up and backed away. Holding out my hands to ward off any more information I didn’t want to hear.
“Jory, Jory, Jory,” she chanted, “don’t you remember me at all? Think back to when you lived in the mountains of Virginia. Think of that little post office, and the rich lady in the fur coat. You were about three then. You saw me, and smiling, you came to stroke my coat, and you told me I was pretty—remember?”
“No!” I cried more stoutly than I felt. “I have never seen you before in my life, not until you moved here! And all blondes with blue eyes look somewhat alike!”
“Yes,” she said brokenly, “I suppose you’re right. I just thought it would be amusing to see your expression. I shouldn’t have played a trick on you. I’m sorry, Jory. Forgive me.”
I couldn’t look at those blue, blue eyes. I had to get away.
I fel
t miserable as I slowly trudged home. If only I hadn’t stayed. If only the portrait hadn’t been delivered while I was there. Why did I have to sense that that woman was more a threat to my mother than my stepfather? What had I accomplished? Was it you, Mom, who stole her second husband’s love? Was it? Didn’t it make good sense when Bart had the same name as him? Everything she’d said confirmed the suspicions that had been sleeping in my mind for so many years. Doors were opening, letting in fresh memories that almost seemed like enemies.
I climbed the stairs of the veranda Mom jokingly called “Paul’s kind of southern veranda.” Certainly it wasn’t the customary California patio.
There was something different about the patio today.
If I had been less troubled, perhaps I would have spotted immediately what was missing. As it was, it took me minutes to realize Clover wasn’t there. I looked around, distressed, calling him.
“For heaven’s sake, Jory,” called Emma from the kitchen window, “don’t yell so loud. I just put Cindy down for a nap and you’ll wake her up. I saw Clover a few minutes ago heading into the garden, chasing a butterfly.”
Of course, I felt relieved. If one thing brought out the puppy in my old poodle, it was a fluttery yellow butterfly. I joined Emma in the kitchen and asked, “Emma, I’ve been wanting to ask for a long time, what year did Mom marry Dr. Paul?”
She was leaning over, checking inside the refrigerator, grumbling to herself. “I could swear there was some fried chicken in here, left over from last night. Since we’re having liver and onions tonight I saved what was left of the chicken for Bart. I thought your finicky brother could eat the leftover thighs.”
“Don’t you remember the year they were married?”
“You were just a little one then,” she said, still rummaging through covered dishes.
Emma was always vague about dates. She couldn’t remember her own birthday. Maybe deliberately. “Tell me again how my mother met Dr. Paul’s younger brother . . . you know, the stepfather we have now.”
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 94