Dollenganger 04 Seeds of Yesterday (3 page)

"No, of course I don't mind giving up performing for a while," he said cheerfully in answer to my question. "I'm tired. Even my bones feel weak with fatigue. We both need a good rest . . . and we have some news for you."
He'd say nothing more.
We hung up, and Chris and I smiled at each other. Joel had retreated to give us privacy, and now he reappeared, tottering uncertainly around a jutting French table with a huge marble urn filled with a dried flower arrangement, speaking of the suite of rooms Bart had planned for my use. He glanced at me, then at Chris before he added, "And for you as well, Dr. Sheffield."
Joel swiveled his watery eyes to study my expression, seeming to find something there that pleased him
Linking my arm with Chris's, I bravely faced the stairs that would take us up, up, and back to that second floor where it had all begun, this wonderful, sinful love that Chris and I had found in the dusty, decaying attic gloom, in a dark place full of junk and old furniture, with paper flowers on the wall and broken promises at our feet.

Midway up the stairs I paused to look down, wanting to see something that might have slipped my notice before. Even as Joel had told us his story, and we'd eaten our sparse lunch, I'd stared at everything I'd seen but twice before, and never had I seen enough. From the room where we'd been, I could easily look into the foyer with its myriad mirrors and fine French furniture placed stiffly in small groupings that tried unsuccessfully to be intimate. The marble floor gleamed like glass from many polishings. I felt the overwhelming desire to dance, dance, and pirouette until I blindly fell . . .

Chris grew impatient as I lingered and tugged me upward until at last we were in the grand rotunda and again I was staring down into the ballroom-foyer.

"Cathy, are you lost in memories?" whispered Chris, somewhat crossly. "Isn't it time we both forget the past and move on? Come, I know you must be very tired."

Memories . . . they came at me fast and furious. Cory, Carrie, Bartholomew Winslow--I sensed them all around me, whispering, whispering. I glanced again at Joel, who'd told us he didn't want us to call him Uncle Joel. He was saving that distinguished title for my children.

He must look as Malcolm did, only his eyes were softer, less piercing than those we'd seen in that huge, lifesize portrait of him in the "trophy" room. I told myself that not all blue eyes were cruel and heartless. Certainly I should know that better than anyone.

Openly studying the aged face before me, I could still see the remnants of the younger man he'd once been. A man who must have had flaxen blond hair and a face very much like my father's--and his son's. Because of this I relaxed and forced myself to step forward and embrace him. "Welcome home, Joel."

His frail old body in my arms felt brittle and cold. His cheek was dry as my lips barely managed a kiss there. He shrank from me as if contaminated by my touch, or perhaps he was afraid of women. I jerked away, regretting now that I'd made an attempt to be warm and friendly. Touching was something no Foxworth was supposed to do unless there was a marriage certificate first. Nervously my eyes fled to meet Chris's. Calm down, his eyes were saying, it's going to be all right.

"My wife is very tired," reminded Chris softly. "We've had a very busy schedule what with seeing our youngest son graduate, and all the parties, and then this trip . . ."

Joel finally broke the long, stiff silence that kept us standing uncomfortably in the dim upstairs rotunda and mentioned that Bart would be hiring servants. Already he'd called an employment agency, and, in fact, had even said we could screen people for him He mumbled so inaudibly that I didn't catch half of what he said, especially when my mind was so busy with speculations as I stared off toward the northern wing and that isolated end room where we'd been locked up. Would it still .be the same? Had Bart ordered two double beds put in there, with all that clutter of dark, massive, antique furniture? I hoped and prayed not.

Suddenly from Joel came words I wasn't prepared for. "You look like your mother, Catherine."
I stared at him blankly, resenting what he must have considered a compliment.
He kept standing there, as if waiting for some silent summons, looking from me to Chris, and then back to me before he nodded and turned to lead the way to our room. The sun that had shone so brilliantly for our arrival was a forgotten memory as the rain began to pelt down with the hard, steady drive of bullets on the slate roof. The thunder rolled and crashed overhead, and lightning split the sky, crackling every few seconds, sending me into Chris's arms as I cringed back from what seemed to me the wrath of God.
Rivulets of water ran on the windowpanes, sluiced down from the roof into drains that soon would flood the gardens and erase all that was alive and beautiful. I sighed and felt miserable to be back here where I felt young and terribly vulnerable again.
"Yes, yes," Joel muttered as if to himself, "just like Corrine." His eyes scanned me critically once more, and then he was bowing his head and reflecting so long five minutes could have passed. Or five seconds.
"We have to unpack," Chris said more forcefully. "My wife is exhausted. She needs a bath, then a nap, for traveling always makes her feel tired and dirty." I wondered why he bothered to explain.
Instantly Joel pulled himself back from where he'd been. Maybe monks often just stood with bowed heads and prayed, and lost themselves in silent worship, and that was all it meant. I didn't know anything at all about monasteries and the kind of lives monks lived.
Slow, shuffling feet were at last leading us down a long hall. He made another turn, and to my distress and dismay he headed toward the southern wing where once our mother had lived in sumptuous rooms. I'd longed to sleep in her glorious swan bed, sit at her long, long dressing table, bathe in her black marble sunken tub with mirrors overhead and all around.
Joel paused before the double doors above two wide, carpeted steps that curved outward in halfmoons. He smiled in a slow, peculiar way. "Your mother's wing," he said shortly.
I paused and shivered outside those too familiar double doors. Helplessly I looked back at Chris. The rain had calmed to a steady staccato drumming. Joel opened one side of the doors and stepped into the bedroom, giving Chris the chance to whisper to me, "To him we are only husband and wife, Cathy--that's all he knows."
Tears were in my eyes as I stepped into that bedroom--and then I was staring bug-eyed at what I'd thought burned in the fire. The bed! The swan bed with the fancy rosy bedcurtains held back gracefully by the tips of wing feathers made into curling fingers. That graceful swan head had the same twist of its neck, the same kind of watchful but sleepy red ruby eye half open to guard the occupants of the bed.
I stared disbelievingly. Sleep in that bed? The bed where my mother had been held in the arms of Bartholomew Winslow--her second husband? The same man I'd stolen from her to father my son Bart? The man who still haunted my dreams and filled me with guilt. No! I couldn't sleep in that bed! Not ever.
Once I'd longed to sleep in that swan bed with Bartholomew Winslow. How young and foolish I'd been then, thinking material things really did bring happiness, and having him for my own would be all I'd ever want.
"Isn't that bed a marvel?" asked Joel from behind me. "Bart went to a great deal of trouble to find artisans who'd handcarve the headboard in the form of a swan. They looked at him, so he said, as if he were crazy. But he found some old men who were delighted to be doing something they found uniquely creative, and financially rewarding. It seems Bart has detailed descriptions of how the swan should have its head turned. One sleepy eye set with a ruby. Fingertip feathers to hold back filmy bed curtains. Oh, the flurry he made when they didn't do it right the first time. And then the little swan bed at the foot, he wanted that, too. For you, Catherine, for you."
Chris spoke, his voice hard. "Joel, just what has Bart told you?" He stepped beside me and encircled my shoulders with the comfort of his arm, protecting me from Joel, from everything. With him I'd live in a thatched hut, a tent, a cave. He gave me strength.
The old man's smile was faint and sardonic as he took notice of Chris's protective attitude. "Bart confided all his family history to me. You see, he's always needed an older man to talk to."
He paused meaningfully, glancing at Chris, who couldn't fail to catch the implication. Despite his control I saw him wince. Joel seemed satisfied enough to continue. "Bart told me about how his mother and her brothers and a sister were locked away for more than three years. He told me that his mother took her sister, Carrie, the twin left alive, and ran off to South Carolina, and you, Catherine, took years and years to find just the right husband to suit your needs best-- and that's why you are now married to . . . Dr. Christopher Sheffield."
There were so many innuendoes in his words, so much he left unsaid. Enough to make me shiver with sudden cold.
Joel finally left the room and closed the door softly behind him. Only then could Chris give me the reassurance I had to have if I was to stay here for even one night. He kissed me, held me, stroked my back, my hair, soothed me until I could turn around and look at everything Bart had done to make this suite of rooms just as luxurious as they'd been before. "It's only a bed, a reproduction of the original," Chris said softly, his eyes warm and understanding. "Our mother has not lain on this bed, darling. Bart read your scripts, remember that. What's here is here because you constructed the pattern for him to follow. You described that swan bed in such exquisite detail that he must have believed you wanted rooms just like our mother used to have. Maybe unconsciously you still do, and he knows that. Forgive us both for
misunderstanding if I'm wrong. Think only that he wanted to please you and went to a great deal of trouble and expense to decorate this room as it used to be."
Numbly I shook my head, denying I'd ever wanted what she had. He didn't believe me. "Your wishes, Catherine! Your desire to have everything she did! I know it. Your sons know it. So don't blame any of us for being able to interpret your desires even when you cover them with clever subterfuges."
I wanted to hate him for knowing me so well. Yet my arms went around him. My face pressed against his shirtfront as I trembled and tried to hide the truth, even from myself. "Chris, don't be harsh with me," I sobbed. "It came as such .a surprise to see these rooms, almost as they used
^,
to be when we came here to steal from her . . . and her husband . . ."
He held me hard against him "What do you really feel about Joel?" I asked.
Considering thoughtfully before he answered, Chris spoke. "I like him, Cathy. He seems sincere and overjoyed that we're willing to let him stay on here."
"You told him he could stay?" I whispered.
"Sure, why not? We'll be leaving soon after Bart has that twenty-fifth birthday when, he 'comes into his own.' And just think of the wonderful opportunity we'll have to learn more about the Foxworths. Joel can tell us more about our mother when she was young, and what life was like for all of them, and perhaps when we know the details, we will be able to understand how she could betray us, and why the grandfather wanted us dead. There has to be an awful truth hidden back in the past to warp Malcolm's brain so he could override our mother's natural instincts to keep her own children alive."
In my opinion Joel had said enough downstairs. I didn't want to know more. Malcolm Foxworth had been one of those strange humans born without conscience, unable to feel remorse for any wrong thing he did. There was no explaining him, and no way to understand.
Appealingly Chris gazed into my eyes, making his heart and soul vulnerable for my scorn to injure. "I'd like to hear about our mother's youth, Cathy, so I can understand what made her the way she turned out to be. She wounded us so deeply I feel neither one of us will ever recover until we do understand. I have forgiven her, but I can't forget. I want to understand so I can help
you
to forgive her . . ."
"Will that help?" I asked sarcastically. "It's too late for understanding or forgiving our mother, and, to be honest, I don't want to find understanding--for if I do, I might have to forgive her."
His arms dropped stiffly to his sides. Turning, he strode away from me. "I'm going out for our luggage now. Take a bath, and by the time you're finished I'll have everything unpacked." At the doorway he paused, not turning to look my way. "Try, really try, to use this as an opportunity to make peace with Bart. He's not beyond restoration, Cathy. You heard him behind the podium. That young man has a remarkable ability for oratory. His words make good sense. He's a leader now, Cathy, when he used to be so shy and introverted. We can count it a blessing that at last Bart has come out of his shell."
Humbly I bowed my head. "Yes, I'll do what I can. Forgive me, Chris, for being unreasonably strongwilled--again."
He smiled and left.
In "her" bath that joined a magnificent dressing room, I slowly disrobed while the black marble sunken tub filled. All about me were gold-framed mirrors to reflect back my nudity. I was proud of my figure, still slim and firm, and my breasts that didn't sag. Stripped of "everything, I lifted my arms to take out the few hairpins still left.
Deja
vu-like, I pictured my mother as she must have stood, doing this same thing while she thought of her second and younger husband. Had she wondered where he was on the nights he spent with me? Had she known just who Bart's mistress was before my revelations at the Christmas party? Oh, I hoped she had!
An unremarkable dinner came and went.
Two hours later I was in the swan bed that had given me many daydreams, watching Chris undress. True to his word, he'd unpacked everything, hung my clothes as well as his own and stowed our underwear in the bureau. Now he looked tired, slightly unhappy. "Joel told me there will be servants coming for interviews tomorrow. I hope you feel up to that."
Startled, I sat up. "But I thought Bart would do his own hiring."
"No, he's leaving that up to you."
"Oh."
Chris hung his suit on the brass valet, again making me think of how much that valet seemed the same one Bart's father had used when he lived here-- or in that other Foxworth Hall. Haunted, that's what I was. Stark naked, Chris headed for the "his" bath. "I'll take a quick shower and join you shortly. Don't fall asleep until I'm through.'
I lay in the semidarkness and stared around me, feeling strangely out of myself. In and out of my mother, I flitted, sensing four children in a locked room overhead in the attic. Feeling the panic and guilt that surely must have been hers while that mean old father below lived on and on, threatening even when he was out of sight. Born bad, wicked, evil. It seemed I heard a whispery voice saying this over and over again. I closed my eyes and tried to stop this craziness. I didn't hear any voices. I didn't hear ballet music playing, I didn't. I couldn't smell the dry, musty scent of the attic. I couldn't. I was fifty-two years old, not twelve, thirteen, fourteen or fifteen.
All the old odors were gone. I smelled only new paint, new wood, freshly applied wallpaper and fabric. New carpets, new scatter rugs, new furniture. Everything new but for the fancy antiques on the first floor. Not the real Foxworth Hall, only an imitation. Yet, why had Joel come back if he liked being a monk so much? Certainly he couldn't want all that money when he'd grown accustomed to monastery austerity. There must be some good reason he was here other than just wanting to see what remained of his family. When the villagers must have told him our mother was dead, still he'd stayed. Waiting his chance to meet Bart? What had he found in Bart that kept him staying on? Even allowing Bart to put him to use as a butler until we had a real one. Then I sighed. Why was I making such a mystery of this when a fortune was involved. Always it seemed money was the reason for doing anything and everything.
Fatigue closed my eyes. I fought off sleep. I needed this time to think of tomorrow, of this uncle come from nowhere. Had we finally gained all that Momma had promised, only to lose it to Joel? If he didn't try to break Momma's will, and we managed to keep what we had, would it carry a price?
In the morning Chris and I descended the right side of the dual staircase, feeling we had at long last come into "our own" and we were finally in control of our lives. He caught my hand and squeezed it, sensing from my expression that this house no longer intimidated me.
We found Joel in the kitchen busily preparing breakfast. He wore a long white apron and cocked on his head was a tall chefs cap. Somehow it looked ludicrous on such a frail, tall, old man. Only fat men should be chefs, I thought, even as I felt grateful to have him take on a chore I'd never really liked.
"I hope you like Eggs Benedict," said Joel without glancing our way. To my surprise, his Eggs Benedict were wonderful. Chris had two servings. Then Joel was showing us rooms not yet decorated. He smiled at me crookedly. "Bart told me you like informal rooms with comfortable furniture, and he wants you to make these empty rooms cozy, in your own inimitable style."
Was he mocking me? He knew Chris and I were here only for a visit. Then I realized perhaps Bart might want me to help with the decorating and was reluctant to say so himself.
When I asked Chris if Joel could break our mother's will and take from Bart the money he felt so necessary for his self-esteem, Chris shook his head, admitting he really didn't know all the ins and outs of legal ramifications when a "dead" heir came back to life.
"Bart could give Joel enough money to see him through the few years he has left," I said, wracking my brain to remember every word of my mother's last will and testament. No mention of her older brothers, whom she'd believed dead.
When I came back from my thoughts, Joel was in the kitchen again, having found what he wanted in the pantry stocked with enough to feed a hotel. He spoke in reply to a question Chris had asked and I hadn't heard. His voice was somber. "Of course, the house isn't exactly the same, for no one uses wooden pegs for nails anymore. I put all the old furniture in my quarters. I don't
really
belong, so I'm going to stay in the servants' quarters over the garages