"No, Luke, I need you. Please, don't go." I reached out toward him, but he continued to back away.
"I must. God bless you, Annie. Get well."
He pivoted quickly and rushed out.
"Luke!" I struggled to get out of the bed. My legs trembled. Even so, I forced them to hold me enough so I could work my way around my bed and grab my walker. Using it, I made my way to the bedroom doorway. I got there just in time to hear the front door open and close.
"Luke!"
"Annie! What's wrong?"
Aunt Fanny rushed across the hallway.
"Oh, Aunt Fanny, hurry. Luke's run out. Stop him. He blames himself for everything, for what happened between me and Drake. . . for . . . for everything."
She nodded, but I saw she knew more than I thought.
"It was bound ta happen, child. Like Heaven, I could see it comin', but I didn't know how ta stop it."
She guided me back to my bed.
"See it coming?" Did everyone know what we thought was kept so deeply secret in our own hearts?
"Saw the way he always looked at ya, saw the way ya were togetha. I saw the light in ya eyes and the light in his'n and I knew what was growin' between ya."
"Oh, Aunt Fanny, I didn't do it deliberately. I. .
." I sat on my bed, my hands in my lap, and shook my head.
"I know, honey." She sat beside me and took my hand. "I know ya wouldn't have let anythin'
happen if ya could stop it. Love jist gushed outta ya and outta him. Can't blame nurther of ya fer it. Ya were both drawn ta one another at an early age, and like two flowers in the forest, hidden from everyone's shoes and sight, yer love grew free and wild until ya entwined. Yet, it's all wrong, so ya got ta untwine. It's goin' ta be somethin' painful, and fer it ta happen atop'a all the rest, it's goin' ta be doubly hard fer ya, but I"ll be here ta help ya get through it, Annie."
"But Luke," I cried. He had no one to help and to comfort him.
"Ya got ta let him go his own way, Annie. I told ya. He ain't jist got Luke Casteel's name; he's got his blood. I loved ma pappy, but he was a man with a man's fire burnin' hot and heavy beneath those pretty eyes."
"Aunt Fanny, I feel so sick inside, so empty and alone. I just can't stand it," I moaned. She put her arms around me and held me to her for a few moments. Then she kissed my forehead and held me out at arm's length.
"Come on, Annie. I'll help ya back ta bed. Ya gotta think of yer own health now."
I let her help me. After I was under the blanket again, she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and stroked my hair just like my mother used to.
"Git yerself some sleep, Annie. be here with ya and help ya till ya get yerself on yer feet again."
"Thank you, Aunt Fanny."
"Us women gotta stick together now," she said, smiling and straightening her shoulders to indicate we would tough it out together.
She kissed me again and then she left me alone in the darkness with only the echo of Luke's voice beside me. I could still see his eyes close to mine.
"It isn't ugly; it can't be ugly," I chanted, and fell asleep with the memory of his kiss still on my lips.
TWENTY-THREE
The Secret of the Cottage
.
The next week and a half was difficult for me.
In some ways it was even harder than the time I had spent at Farthy. Not that anyone was cruel to me; far from it. All of the servants and my aunt Fanny couldn't have been more concerned, loving, and considerate. But now, so soon after I had lost my parents, I had lost Luke, the one person in the world who I thought would always be there for me, the one person who made the struggle and the pain worthwhile. He was gone, and I felt as dead and as lost inside as I had when I had lost my parents.
Days were bleak and dark no matter how
brightly the sun shone. I was forever cold and tired, wrapping my blankets around me and spending hours and hours simply staring up at the ceiling, not even wanting to put on the lights when twilight came. At times I felt numb, and at times I cried and cried until my chest ached. I cried myself to sleep, only to awaken to the realization that now all the people who had been close to me were gone. I had never felt so alone, not even when I was shut up in Farthy. At least when I was there, I still had my fantasies, my dreams.
Now even the dreams were gone. There were
no more fantasies to pass the dreary time away. What was even worse, my memories of Luke and myself now seemed tainted. We were living a forbidden love, and all that had once been wonderful and beautiful to remember now seemed evil and wrong. That tore my heart and filled me with agony.
How horrible it was not only to lose the ones you love, but to lose the pleasure and joy of the memories of them as well. Fate had plundered my heart, come into my garden and plucked every blossoming flower, leaving only a plot of weeds and stems stripped naked of their beauty, their reason to be.
Many of my parents' old friends paid belated condolence calls, belated because I had been too far away for them to do so before. I appreciated their sympathy, but each time someone visited, I relived the tragedy, felt my loss afresh.
Some of my mother's friends broke into tears in my presence, and their sorrow cut into me sharply, opening wounds where scabs had formed.
Nevertheless, I found myself being the stronger one and by necessity comforting them.
"It's jist what Heaven would do," Aunt Fanny remarked after one such episode. "In a pinch no one was stronger than yer ma. I was the one whinin' and bitchin', but it was her and Torn got us the food when we was nearly starvin', and it was her who nursed and cared for Our Jane when she was sickly."
These stories about my mother and stories like them gave me the determination and strength to work on my recuperation after Luke and Drake had run out on me. Aunt Fanny said Luke called frequently to ask about me, but each time she asked him if he wanted to speak to me, he told her he would speak to me another time. At least a half-dozen times I tried to compose a letter to him, but whenever I looked at what I had written, I tore it up because nothing seemed right, nothing expressed how I truly felt.
Doc Williams stopped by often to check on my progress. My legs grew stronger every day, and he assigned me a physical therapist to help me build them up, until I reached the point where I no longer needed the walker. Doc Williams gave me a cane to use just to keep my balance. A few days later I navigated stairs by myself and finally went outside by myself and sat on the gazebo, thinking about all the things that had happened to me and Luke. Aunt Fanny came out after me, insisting I put on a sweater.
"There's a chill in the air and ya still ain't fatted up ta where ya should be."
Autumn had crawled in quietly under the
shadows, moving around us like a sleek, cool cat.
Suddenly one morning I noticed that the leaves were nearly all rust and gold.
I remembered how much Mommy loved the
fall. She told me it was especially pretty in the Willies. "I loved to wander through the forest then.
Above me the trees were dazzling in the sunlight, the different trees different shades of yellow: amber, lemon, saffron; and different shades of brown: chestnut, ginger, and dark mahogany. Go to the forest in the fall, Annie," she told me, "and you'll get all your ideas for colors in your paintings."
She was right about that, but thinking about the forest and walking through the woods only reminded me of Luke because we had done that so many times together. How I wished he was with me now, now that I was back on my feet. But he was back at college trying to forget.
I began a painting of Luke. First, I drew the gazebo, and then I drew him standing in it, looking over the grounds thoughtfully. While I worked on my painting of him, I eased the pain of his being away from me some, but as soon as I drew closer to finishing it, I felt a terrible loss. I delayed completing it, finding this and that to do, adding a detail here and changing something there. But soon I had no more to do and no way to avoid finishing it. When
I finally put down my brush and stood back, I loved and hated the painting at the same time.
I had painted it from my heart and had captured him well, captured the way he always tilted his head a bit to the right whenever he grew deeply thoughtful, captured those strands of hair that always seemed to be over his forehead, captured the look in his eyes when he gazed at me and saw the love I had for him.
But the picture teased and tormented me. It made me long to hear his voice and feel his presence.
This was the artist's passion and agony as well, I thought, to fall in love with what you create and yet never to truly possess.
It made me feel so melancholy to think these thoughts. In the past when I had these depressions or became so deeply involved in something philosophi-cal that it made my heart heavy and cheerless, I could go to Mommy and unload the burden my sad thoughts had placed on me. Mommy would greet me with the warmest smile, and almost immediately I was light-
hearted and happy again. We would flip through the pages of fashion magazines and discuss the fads just like two teenage girls, giggling over something we thought silly, sighing over something we thought beautiful.
I still hadn't gone into my parents' bedroom yet.
I didn't have the courage to go into the room where they had slept, where I had often gone whenever I had a nightmare or an unpleasant thought, and where I had been comforted and loved. I was afraid to look at their empty bed, see their closets and clothing, my father's shoes, my mother's jewels, the pictures, everything that had belonged to them.
But I knew that if I were to go on with my life and truly face the tragedy that had changed it so, I had to confront the things I loved that were gone; I had to face down the torment and the misery. Only then would I become strong enough to be the woman Mommy and Daddy wanted me to be, the woman I had to be for myself as well as for them.
I made my way slowly out of my room, guiding myself with the cane. I paused in the hallway, once more hesitating to turn to my right and go to their bedroom doorway, but this time my argument with myself was short. I was determined.
I opened the door. The curtains were open and the windows raised to air out the room. Everything was as neat and in place as it had been the night of the accident.
I stood in the doorway for a while and gazed at everything, visually digesting each and every morsel of memory. There on the vanity table were Mommy's powders and perfumes, a set of blue seashell earrings she had left the night of Aunt Fanny's fateful party, and the dark mahogany jewelry box Daddy had bought her one Christmas. Lined up neatly beside it were her pearl combs.
My heartrending gaze moved slowly across the room, pausing at the bed. Her soft red satin slippers peeked out from under it on her side, longing, I was sure, for the feel of her small feet slipping into them.
A book she had been reading was still on the night table, a marker stuck between pages more than halfway through.
Of course, the painting of the cabin in the Willies was still above their bed. Looking up at it now made me think of Luke going there to think things over and conclude he should go back to college and stay away from me for a while. Perhaps the spirits of his grandpa Toby and grandma Annie had advised him. Maybe it was the right advice after all.
On Daddy's dresser was a large photograph
taken of the two of them at their wedding reception at Farthy. Now I recognized the background. They both looked so young and so alive. Although when I studied the picture closely this time, it seemed to me there was also a longing in Mommy's face. From where they were standing, I knew they were facing the maze.
Thinking about the maze made me think about Troy and the cottage. And suddenly a wave of realization rushed over me. I returned to my room and gazed at the toy cottage Mommy had given me on my eighteenth birthday. The gift had meant so much to me because I knew how much it meant to her, but when I looked at it now, I found that it intermingled with images of the real cottage on the other side of the maze at Farthy, and I realized that it had to have been Troy Tatterton who had made the gift and had sent it to Mommy shortly after my birth. She had never talked about who had sent it. All she and Daddy had said was they assumed some Tatterton artisan had made it.
Was it that Mommy didn't know Troy was still alive and so couldn't imagine him making and sending it? Wasn't he afraid she might grow suspicious?
Thinking about him now brought another
picture to mind: the way he sat in the chair talking to me . . . the way he had his hands behind his head. That was the pose the little man in the toy cottage had, too.
Was that just a coincidence? And the little woman looked like Mommy, had her hair color, wore her kind of dress. She had to have known who sent this. Who else but Troy could have captured that scene? If she knew he was still alive and had sent the replica of the cottage, why did she keep that a secret?
I guided myself into the small chintz chair by my vanity table and set down my cane. Then, slowly, carefully, I lifted the roof of the toy cottage away, and instantly the tinkle of the Chopin nocturne began. It seemed to have been waiting all this time for someone to start it going again. I peered down at the small figures within and confirmed what I had thought: the man did look like Troy; the young lady was the tiny replica of Mommy.
Now that I had been in the real cottage, I saw things I had never noticed before: the wee toys the tiny man had been making, the teacups on the table in the kitchen, and the partially opened back door. Did the door actually open and close?
My fingers trembled as I reached in aid touched the tiny door, which was only three inches tall. It swung open on its small hinges, and when I lowered my head to peer into it, I saw there was a flight of stairs going down. Something there caught ity eye. A little ways down those mysterious stairs was a pale white piece of paper. My fingers were too large to fit through the doorway safely to reach in and retrieve whatever it was. There was only one way to do it, the way whatever it was had been put in there, I thought: with a pair of tweezers.
I found a pair in Mommy's vanity-table drawer, and with both a surgeon's eye and a surgeon's dexterity, inserted the tip of the tweezers through the tiny doorway and took hold of the mysterious paper, inching it out carefully until I could see that it had been folded tightly until it had been small enough to hide.
I brought it up and out of the cottage and put it down on the tabletop. Then I placed the cottage roof back on to stop the tinkle of the music and began to unfold the paper. It was brittle, and yellowed with age, like those replicas of historic documents made to look authentic. The ends broke away and threatened to disintegrate in my fingers.
Finally I had it completely unfolded and placed before me on the table. It was a full letter-size sheet of paper. The creases were so deep, they made the words difficult to read, but I struggled through it.
.
My dear, dear forbidden love,
Now, more than ever, last night seems like a dream. So many times this past year I had the fantasy, that now, now that it actually came to pass, I find it hard to believe it really happened.
I sat here thinking about you, recalling our precious moments, the softness in your eyes and in your touch. I had to get up and go to my bed to search for strands of your hair, which, thank God, I found. I shall have a locket made for them and wear it close to my heart. It comforts me to know that I shall have something of you always with me.
I had hoped to remain here awhile longer, even though I recognized it would be a torture, and from time to time spy on you at Farthy. It would have brought me pleasure as well as some pain to see you walking over the grounds or sitting and reading. I would have been like a foolish schoolboy, I know.
This morning, not long after you left me, Tony came to the cottage and told me the news, news I expect you will be bringing to me, too. Only by the time you arrive I will be gone. I know it seems cruel of me to leave Tony at a time like this, but I gave him all the comfort I could while he was here and we had a chance to talk.
You are probably wondering why I feel it
necessary to leave so quickly after Jillian's death.
My dear Heaven, as hard as it may be for you to understand, I feel somewhat responsible. The truth is I enjoyed tormenting her with my presence. As I told you, she saw me a few times, and I knew it shocked her each time. I could have told her the truth, that I was not dead, that I was no ghost, but I chose to let her believe she was seeing a spirit. I wanted her to suffer some guilt, for even though it wasn't her fault you were born Tony's daughter, I always resented her for telling me, for exposing that horrible truth between you and me. She was always a very jealous person, resentful of the affection Tony had för me, even when I was just a little boy.
Now I feel terribly guilty about it all. I had no right to punish her. I should have realized it would only bring pain to Tony and even to you. It seems that I bring sadness and tragedy to everyone around me.
Of course, Tony doesn't feel this way. He didn't want me to leave, but in the end I convinced him it was best.
Please stand by him during this time of great need, and comfort him as best you can. You will be acting for the both of us.
I expect you and I shall never set eyes upon each other again or touch each other the way we touched each other last night. But the memory of you is so engraved in my heart that I take you with me no matter where I go.
Forever and ever, Troy
.
I sat back, dazed.
"Momma, did you know what you were
bequeathing me when you gave me this cottage, the symbol of your love?" I whispered.
The unfairness, the sadness, the tragedy of it all struck me like a cold gust of wind. How horribly history had repeated itself. Something I had sensed in my heart, but hadn't quite put into words in my thoughts, had been true: Mommy and Troy Tatterton had been lovers, but their love was just as Troy had written at the top of the letter--forbidden. It was as forbidden a love as the love between Luke and myself, for Troy was Tony's brother, my mother's uncle. A blood relationship had made their love for one another foul, just as our blood relationship had made my love for Luke and his love for me foul.
Gates of Paradise (Casteel Series #4) Page 36