The Fire Night Ball (20 page)

The curse! He didn't get it, did he? It must have fallen off the mantle, and he never saw it. Just like the note from Nicholas to Cassandra that lay unseen on the mantle here in Mill's Creek the night she left town. Oh my God. Letty's right. I'm accursed!

When she began moaning, the two older women feared her emotions would generate more spotting. But nothing more appeared, and two hours later, when the bleeding hadn't reoccurred, they breathed a mutual sigh of relief. With all the good nursing and comforting woman talk she’d got, Marlena had fallen asleep with a mustache of warm milk on her upper lip.

Faith whispered to Chloe, after they’d tiptoed out of Marlena’s room, "She called for me, invited me here on her own accord."

"I know." Chloe hugged Faith. "Welcome home, Granny Bellum."

"Well, just don't expect home-made bread in the morning," whispered Faith. "I'm still plain old Faith who's no good in the kitchen."

"You were a good mom when she needed you tonight, Faith. That's what counts."

It was very late, but Faith found she couldn't fall asleep. Instead, she lay awake and wrestled with some demons of her own. She reviewed her life and the mistakes she had made.

In the end, she decided it was wrong of her to have duped Marlena all these years about her paternity. She saw no alternative now but to come clean about the whole rotten, filthy mess. She must confess to her daughter that Austin, though he wasn't Marlena's father, was the father of Chloe’s aborted child; and that, when Austin told Faith confessed this during a drunken quarrel, Faith decided to leave Austin and go to New York to see if she could find Gordon again, using the care of her father as a pretext. Of course, she hadn't found Gordon.

When all this was acknowledged--and if Marlena was still speaking to her after these terrible admissions--she would beg her daughter's forgiveness for leaving her behind in Austin's clutches for two long years
.

You knew he was a sex addict, didn't you, Faith?

Perhaps, if Marlena knew Austin wasn't her real father, she would have fewer painful flashbacks, as Chloe called them.

Having sped through her rosary, Faith fell asleep, clearer in her conscience than she’d been in many years. At four in the morning, she was awakened by Marlena. She was having more spasms, and she was anxious about them.

Faith tended to her daughter until she was soundly, peacefully asleep. After that, she slept on a cot next to Marlena’s bed. She prayed to the Blessed Virgin her child would come through this crisis whole and happy.

December 25, 1977

At the crack of dawn, Marlena, Chloe, Faith, Annie and Apollo quietly assembled before the tree and opened their Christmas gifts. The occasion was subdued, but joyous.

Chloe said she must go back to bed and get her beauty sleep before the big ball--this made Marlena feel like Cinderella.

"But there's so much to do!" she objected.

"Not by you, Miss Marlena. Anyway, it's all done," said Annie. "Thanks for washing the windows yesterday."

Faith took Marlena's placid retreat to her bedroom as a sign that it was time to fulfill her resolution. Without a knock, because she was too nervous even to stand at the door, she barged into Marlena's room. She found her daughter sitting up in bed, reading. Without preamble, Faith blurted out her confession.

As Marlena listened to the incredible airing of her mother's dirty laundry, her eyes grew big as saucers. As it happened, their color fit into Faith's confession.

"That's why I never commented on your beautiful eyes, Lena. They’re exactly like your father's--Gordon's, that is. Luckily for me, you got the remainder of your looks from the Zanellis. Okay, from cousin Cassandra, with her red-gold hair and beautiful face and figure."

Faith said that ever since she'd arrived back here at the scene of the early days of her marriage, she'd been forced to review her own part in creating a shambles of what a solid home life should look like.

She now realized Chloe had never loved Austin, and that she, Faith, had made a terrible mistake in giving up the man she loved to marry him.

Marlena was stunned. “Chloe and Daddy?”

Hurrying along, Faith said she'd married Austin for an even more critical reason. She couldn't convince Gordon, who had got her pregnant after a single act of post-war intercourse, to marry her in the Catholic church.

She’d sought to appease God and preserve the Zanellis' respectability by marrying Austin and pretending the child was his. She had put these considerations above her own and her daughter's welfare. For her duplicity, and for leaving Marlena alone in Alta with Austin, she now begged forgiveness.

"Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. I couldn't go through this holy day with the terrible sin on my conscience, not with your being so honest with me about your troubles. My plan was to convince you to pretend the baby is Coddie's. It worked for me, so it might work for you. But now I'm not so sure, and I'm ashamed of myself for thinking that way."

When she'd finished what she'd come to say, Faith stared fearfully at Marlena. She was prepared to endure a torrent of abuse or years of stony silence.

"Oh, Mama!"

To Faith's astonishment, Marlena fell on her mother’s neck, weeping, and kissed her. It was the first exchange of emotion between mother and daughter in a dozen years.

"You don’t know what it means to me that you've confided in me," said Marlena when she was able to speak. "I know how I've hurt you by my silence, and I'm sorry. I promise you'll be proud of me again one day."

"I've always been proud of you, Lena."

"Mama, those words are the best Christmas present I've ever had."

Mother and daughter were still sobbing and hugging when Chloe knocked.

Wiping her tears away, Faith got up and opened the door.

"Ready, you two? Annie has prepared a huge brunch for us. Then it's nap time for Marlena, seriously. You've got to get some rest, dear, before the party tonight. Doctor’s orders."

The last person Annie Witherspoon expected to see Christmas morning was Harry Drake outside her window. She was cleaning up the brunch remains when, unlikely as it was, there he was on cross country skis, grinning owlishly at her through the leaded glass window in his snow goggles. His nose was painted white with sun block. She screamed.

Annie had a fear of clowns, a phobia which Chloe had successfully treated her for, but Drake's sudden appearance was both clownish and unexpected.

"Must see Marlena!" he shouted as she retreated from the window. The wrapping papers from the gift exchange were still piled in a corner of the parlor, and there were a million things to do before the ball tonight. Now this blackguard appears, Annie thought resentfully as her panic subsided.

She trudged to the back kitchen door, opened it a crack, and said Miz Marlena was not to be disturbed. Would he like to come back later? Then Harry pitched a fit. She’d witnessed it several times before, when he was young man sniffing around Miss Chloe. Annie shook her head and compressed her lips into a thin upside-down U while Harry hurled aloft his ski poles, so his valet had to chase after them.

Then her mistress arrived on the scene. While Annie grumpily retreated, Chloe courteously invited her old friend in. Harry sat in Annie’s nook, looking silly with his painted nose, while his hostess poured strong coffee and listened to his side of the story.

"I guess by now you know all about Marlena and me," he began in a resentful tone. "If you don't, you're the only one in town who hasn't heard the gossip."

"Yes, but not because Marlena spilled the beans."

Chloe told Harry how she’d first learned of their relationship from a colleague who’d spotted them in Santa Monica.

"Marlena was horrified when I asked her about it. All she did was confirm what I already knew."

Harry admitted he’d deliberately ignored an urgent message from Marlena, via Dr. Ron, to contact her, but that he felt justified in doing so.

"Why, Harry?"

Chloe’s trained eyes flashed when he told her he believed Marlena was lying about a trumped-up pregnancy.

“I heard about her supposed condition yesterday, from Codwell Dimmer in my own hotel bar, no less. He's claiming I'm the father."

"From
Coddie
you heard that she's pregnant?"

"From fucking Dimmer, of all people."

"How very odd."

"You haven't heard the worst. I'm being framed. They're after my money."

He described how divorce papers had been strategically placed in Marlena's hotel room, clearly left out for him to see, and how this ploy had been quickly followed by others, culminating in Dimmer's sudden appearance and his claim Harry had knocked up his wife.

Then Harry laid out his darkest suspicion: Marlena was in cahoots with her husband. The plan was to pressure him into leaving Lila and marrying Marlena, so she could get his hands on his real estate holdings.

She had even masterminded over-the-top vandalism in the bar, Harry recounted indignantly, to call attention to her plight and guilt him into marrying her. “If they think I’ll be railroaded and swindled, they have another think coming, by bloody Mungo."

"Who's Mungo, dear?"

"A Scottish saint. My good luck charm is a Saint Mungo medallion I wear around my neck. It was handed down to me from my father, who got it his father. I only take it off for formal occasions, like your ball tonight."

"The cursing, no doubt, was also passed down from Curly Drake. He was known for colorful language, though your father was not."

But Harry wasn't to be derailed by any side excursions into family history. He began pacing about the kitchen, shouting about Marlena’s perfidious nature.

"Keep your voice down, Harry. Marlena is sleeping. She had a rough night."

There was no sign that Harry had heard her last comment or, if he heard it, cared.

"The little tramp will NOT lay a hand on my properties OR me. It'll be over my dead body. I swear by any saint you can name, Christopher, Mungo, Judas Priest, the whole bloody lot. She won’t force my hand with a pregnancy that might belong to ANY SWINGING DICK IN TOWN."

Chloe threw up her hands, startling Harry.

“I’m aware of how deeply engrained is the fear of being cuckolded, my friend. Indeed, a study in New York City has recently uncovered the fact that in almost a quarter of all pregnancies, the sperm didn’t belong to the named father.

"However, anyone who knows Marlena and the crazy depths of her obsession for you will never doubt you indeed are the father. Just when I think you couldn’t do any worse, Harry Drake, you outdo yourself. It’s amazing, what an unfeeling cad you are.”

Harry stopped his pacing and stared at her in disbelief.

“Cad? What nonsense are you talking, woman? Marlena’s not like us, so why are you defending her? She's a low-born nobody. I never thought of her as the mother of my child, as I did when I was with you.”

Chloe found his comment to be very annoying, but all she said was “Let's not revisit the past, shall we? The present is difficult enough.”

He came back to his chair, took a gulp of coffee, and sighed loudly.

“So, let’s accept, for the sake of argument," said Chloe patiently, "that Marlena is indeed pregnant with your child. Now, Harry, what do you wish her to do about it?"

“I’d have to think about that one.”

“Look me in the eye, my friend. Our very special Marlena
is
pregnant, and through no fault of her own. Her I.U.D. slipped. I assure you she's embarrassed, terrified, and unsure of what to do. She’s most eager to speak with you about it, though I won’t allow you near her now. But it’s not your decision to make, whether or not she has the child. It’s her body, her decision, her child
, if
she wants it.”

"Oh, really. We’ll just have to see about who's in the driver's seat. I could make her life miserable, refuse to acknowledge the bastard, ruin her reputation, and throw them both over the wall without a penny."

His face was dark and malevolent, the upper lip curled in scorn, the scar on his face throbbing. If Chloe hadn't been a psychiatrist, she would have visibly cringed. But as she said nothing and looked at him impassively, Harry continued on in an unbridled, belligerent tone.

"Who's to say I'm the bloody father? I'll demand proof. She's still married to Dimmer, isn't she, though she dropped his name like a hot potato. Let the lawful husband take the fall. Now I think of it, he gave me the distinct impression he wanted her back on any terms, though why he does, I'm sure I don't know.”

He stroked and relaxed his jaw, which had been clenched tight.

Chloe said in measured tones, "I'm not sure about Coddie's motives in coming here or telling you the news, Harry. What I’m sure of is that it's not your money Marlena wants but rather your love and commitment.”

“Come on. Knowing Marlena as we do, we both know exactly what's going on. She's a social climber in love with a fantasy, not with me.”

“That may be true. But she's worried about how you'll react to the pregnancy and how it might affect your reputation. Those are the real issues for her, not her own well being. The question is, do you care enough about Marlena to consider what’s best for her?"

"Oh, come on. If you think Marlena cares a fart about me or my future, you must be talking about a different cunt than the one I know."

Along with the sneer, a new thought crossed Harry's mind. His expression now contained a flash of the cunning wolf. An alarm went off in Chloe's head, and she wasn't reassured by what he said next.

"If ever there was a woman unfit to be a mother, it's Marlena. You asked me what I'd do. Why, I'd get the child away from her and raise it myself. It shouldn't be too difficult."

She knew he was already thinking of the lawyers he would hire and the judges he would bribe.

"We've been friends for a long time, Harry, but I’ve nothing more to say to you on this subject. Good day."

As it appeared he wouldn't be getting the sympathetic ear he’d come for, Harry got up, slammed the door, and stomped off.

But as he skied back toward Drake's Roost, fuming at being misunderstood by yet another perverse female, he was also mulling over the fact of his paternity as it began to sink in. An heir apparent to his throne wasn’t something he’d thought would ever happen to him.

For, despite what he’d said just now to Chloe, he had no doubt he was the father. The rival he saw yesterday was a wretched cuckold; Dimmer reeked of the lunacy of the sterile cuckoo. Now that it was too late in their high-stakes game for a clear-cut win, Dimmer wanted the damaged goods back, at any cost. Why?

God knows, but on Dimmer's watch, what would happen to the child,
hi
s child?

Well, perhaps he needed to think this matter through more carefully before making any rash moves. He would be seeing Marlena later tonight, at the Fire Night Ball. Perhaps it was time they talked things over.

As Harry turned over the ski poles and boot fastenings to his valet, he told the man to have his tuxedo aired and pressed and his dance shoes shined, so all would be ready for the evening activities.

Alexander opened the door for him with the ironic smirk which he hated so much. Harry vowed once more to lay down the law with Lila; that fag had to go.

He marched through his cavernous house and entered his office, a room that was called the Board Room but which looked more like the Vatican, with a 200-foot domed ceiling. There was a lot of correspondence to go through, but he found what he was thinking about was the unexpected Christmas gift he’d received from his young mistress.

There were strange rumblings in the location of his heart. He pressed on his scapula.