The Unloved (28 page)

Ruby backed away from the bed, stunned. So it was true. She’d thought of it before—just a fleeting thought that she’d instantly rejected, unwilling to face the possibility that Marguerite could have done such a thing. But she’d known.

She’d known, and had done nothing.

But now she had to do something. She had to get help, get help for Marguerite, and for herself. If she didn’t—

“I’ll call Dr. Adams,” she said softly. “I’ll just call the doctor, and he’ll come out. He’ll take care of you.”

She turned away and started for the door, then heard Marguerite moving. She turned then, but it was already too late. Her eyes burning madly, Marguerite was upon her,
hurtling herself toward Ruby, her hands outstretched, her fingers curled into angry claws. Ruby gasped and tried to duck aside, but Marguerite lurched into her, knocking her off balance. She stumbled and fell to the floor, feeling a sharp pain in her ankle.

Then Marguerite was upon her, scratching at Ruby’s face, pummeling her fists against the housekeeper’s head.

Ruby tried to defend herself, tried to use her arms to protect herself from Marguerite’s fury, but it was impossible.

Marguerite stared unseeingly down at Ruby’s face. She had to stop her, stop her before she told Kevin, and Kevin took Julie away from her. And he would too.

He’d take Julie away from her, just like her mother took her baby away from her, and took her dancing away from her—took everything away from her, until there was nothing left of herself except a shell.

An empty shell.

All those years of feeling dead inside.

All those years of having nothing.

Nothing except a few hours each week with her girls, who came to her for dancing lessons.

But they left too. They grew up, and went on with their lives, and left her alone with her mother.

And even her mother had left her.

Taken everything she had, then left her.

But no one else would ever leave her again. Not Ruby, or Kevin, or Julie.

Certainly not Julie.

Whatever happened, she’d keep Julie.

Just as her mother had kept her.

Except that Ruby wanted to ruin it all. But it wouldn’t happen. She wouldn’t let it happen. Her fingers sank deep into Ruby’s hair, and closed into fists.

Her arms stiff, she began rocking back and forth, smashing Ruby’s head against the floor over and over again.

Dimly, as if from a great distance, she could hear Ruby’s screams, but she ignored them and kept rocking.

It was like riding a rocking horse.

She could remember it from when she was a tiny little girl.

You had to sit straight and hold the reins just right. And then you started rocking, and the horse’s head would go up and down, up and down.

Up and down.

There was a strange, compelling rhythm to it, almost like swaying to a melody—punctuated by the hollow thump of Ruby’s head striking the hardwood of the floor.

Ruby was silent now, and her arms had dropped away from their futile struggle against Marguerite. Then, slowly, her energy beginning to drain away, Marguerite stopped rocking and let go of Ruby’s hair. She looked down once more.

Ruby’s eyes were closed, and for a moment Marguerite was certain she was dead. But then she felt Ruby’s chest heave slightly under her weight.

She had to do something.

If Kevin came home and found Ruby—

Downstairs.

She had to get Ruby downstairs, where Kevin wouldn’t find her.

She got up, heaving herself off Ruby’s inert body. Her hip felt almost numb now, as if the pain had finally burned itself out, and she dragged herself to the chair where one of her mother’s dressing gowns lay. She slipped into the robe, then used the belt to tie Ruby’s hands together.

Grasping the belt with both her own hands, she hauled Ruby to the door of her room and out into the corridor. She paused for a moment, trying to catch her breath, then started slowly toward the head of the stairs, moving Ruby a few feet at a time. Once, she thought she heard Ruby moan, but decided it must have been something else, for as she stared down into the unconscious face, she saw no sign of movement. Indeed, she thought Ruby looked almost peaceful.…

She came to the head of the stairs and worked Ruby around so that she was sitting up, her back resting against the wall next to the chair lift that hadn’t been used since her mother had died. She bent over then, slipping her hands under Ruby’s armpits. Taking a deep breath, she heaved upward and to the right, and then Ruby’s bulk shifted onto the chair.

Using the free end of the belt, she tied Ruby to the chair,
then turned the power switch on. Below her, in the closet, she could hear the faint hum of the lift’s machinery. She pressed the button, and a metallic clanking sound echoed in the entry hall. There was a rattle, and the chair slowly began to descend the wide staircase.

Marguerite moved stiffly beside it until it came to the bottom, automatically shifted itself into neutral, and fell silent. Untying the belt from the chair, she let Ruby slip back to the floor, her eyes still closed.

She grasped the belt around Ruby’s wrists once more and dragged her toward the stairs to the basement. It was easier now, for the floor of the entry hall was polished hardwood and there was less resistance than there had been on the carpeting upstairs. She came to the narrow door to the basement, opened it, poised Ruby at the top of the stairs, then pushed.

Ruby rolled down, her body tumbling grotesquely, then sprawling out on its back at the bottom.

Her breath coming in gasps now, Marguerite made her way to the foot of the basement stairs, stepped over Ruby, and pulled the string on the overhead light fixture.

A harsh white light from an unshaded bulb filled the basement, momentarily blinding Marguerite. But then her eyes adjusted to the light and she gazed around until she saw what she was looking for.

A small door, almost invisible, in the far corner of the basement.

Dragging Ruby behind her, she started toward the door. When she was in front of it, she stopped.

It had been years since she had been down here.

Years since the weeks—or had it been months?—after the accident, when her mother had kept her locked up down here, locked up in the dark, locked up until she understood that she had been sick and that without her mother she would never have gotten well at all.

She could still hear her mother’s voice coming through the door, hanging in the darkness.

“I could have sent you away. I could have sent you away
forever. But I didn’t. I love you. I love you, and I kept you at home, where you belong.”

Where you belong … where you belong …

The words still echoed, and as she reached for the doorknob, her fingers trembled.

At her feet, Ruby moaned softly.

Marguerite twisted the knob, but the door wouldn’t open.

Then she saw the heavy padlock, hanging from its hasp.

Her right leg half dragging now, she made her way up to the kitchen and found Ruby’s key ring hanging on the hook just inside the kitchen door. Snatching it off the hook, she hobbled back to the basement. She began fumbling with the keys, searching for the right one. And then, after what seemed an eternity, one of the keys slipped into the lock and it fell open in her hands.

She opened the door.

The room inside was tiny.

A wooden bed with a thin cotton pad was against one wall, a wide shelf opposite it—the shelf where, while she’d been sick, she’d eaten the meals that Ruby brought to her twice a day.

All she could remember of the room was the feel of that hard bed where she’d lain, hour after hour, week after week, waiting to get well, waiting for the pain to stop.

And finally the worst of the pain
had
stopped, and she’d come out of the room in the basement and never gone back to it.

But it had always been there, waiting for her.…

Ruby moaned again, and then her eyes flicked open for a moment. “No,” she mumbled. “Oh, no, please …”

Marguerite stared down at her, then leaned over and grasped the housekeeper’s hands once again. Pulling hard, she hauled Ruby over the threshold and, ignoring the pain in her leg, lowered herself to the floor.

She wrapped the free end of the soft satin belt around Ruby’s neck and began to pull it tight.

Tight, and then tighter …

Ruby’s eyes popped open and began to swell out of their sockets. One of her hands came up, groped toward Marguerite,
then fell away. Her fingers twitched for a second, then were still.

“It’s going to be all right now,” Marguerite whispered softly as she put the lock back on its hasp and snapped it closed. “Everything’s going to be all right. I’ll have my home, and I’ll have my little girl to take care of me, and nobody will ever leave me again. Never, ever again …”

An hour later Marguerite, dressed in one of her mother’s favorite gowns, the string of jet beads around her neck, was back in the ballroom. Humming softly to herself, she raised her arms and bowed as gracefully as she could to the dancing partner only she could see.

“I dance well,” she breathed as she let herself be taken into the invisible arms. “But not as well as my daughter. My daughter is going to be a star someday.” She smiled gently, a faraway look in her eye. “I’m going to see to that. Yes, someday Marguerite is going to be a star.…”

Kevin steered Marguerite’s old Chevy off the causeway and turned left up the road toward the house. The car, coughing in protest as he pressed the accelerator, lurched forward, and Kevin shook his head dolefully. “We’re going to have to get a new car,” he said to no one in particular. “This one’s about to fall apart.”

“Can we get a convertible?” Jeff immediately asked from the backseat. “They’re neat.”

“I think another station wagon might be a little more practical,” Kevin replied. Glancing ahead, he frowned. Silhouetted against the clear sky, Sea Oaks loomed like a dark and heavy mass, leavened only by a single light from the west end of the second story. “How come Ruby didn’t leave the lights on for us?”

“Why would she?” Julie asked. “This is the first time we’ve gone out at night.”

A couple of minutes later Kevin pulled the Chevy into the garage, switched off the wheezing motor, and swung the splintering door closed. Julie and Jeff were already in the kitchen when Kevin caught up with them, and Jeff was rummaging through the refrigerator, searching for something to eat.

“Not now,” Kevin told him, pushing the refrigerator door closed. “It’s past eleven, and you’ve already had a chocolate malt. Time for bed.”

“Aw, Dad,” Jeff moaned. “Ruby said she was going to make a pie tonight. Can’t I have just one piece?”

Kevin glanced quickly around the kitchen, then glared at his son with mock severity. “If Ruby had wanted you to eat
her pie, she would have left it out for you. Now, off with you!” He smacked Jeff’s bottom gently, and the boy scooted out of the kitchen. When he was gone, Kevin smiled at Julie. “How about you? If I can find that pie, want to split a piece with me?”

Julie shook her head. “I shouldn’t have had that sundae. I’ll swell up like a balloon.”

“Suit yourself,” Kevin replied. He checked the back door to make certain it was locked. “If you’re going up, make sure your brother brushed his teeth, will you?”

“Who has to make sure? He never brushes them unless I stand right there while he does it.”

Kevin turned to look at Julie, his head cocked slightly, as if he was seeing her for the first time. “And you do that?” he asked, his voice choking with sudden emotion.

Julie shrugged, then nodded, blushing slightly with self-consciousness. “S-Someone has to do it,” she said, her voice trembling.

Kevin bit his lip, then put his arms around his daughter, holding her close. “I know,” he murmured. “But it should be me, not you. I guess I haven’t been—”

Julie squeezed him hard, and spoke before he could finish. “I know how much you miss Mom,” she said. “We all miss her. And I don’t mind looking after Jeff. You have to look after all of us, and take care of this place and everything. What was I supposed to do?” she asked, looking up into her father’s eyes. “Ask you if you wanted me to help with Jeff?”

“But you’re only fifteen—”

“Almost sixteen,” Julie reminded him. “And sometimes, since Mom died, I feel like I’m thirty. All of a sudden everything’s different, and I can’t act like a baby anymore. But Jeff’s only eight. Someone has to look out for him.”

Kevin’s throat constricted, and for a moment he thought he was going to cry. “Thank you,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. Together they moved out of the kitchen and through the house to the bottom of the stairs. “I’ll check around down here, then come up,” he said. He chuckled, but there was a hollowness to his laugh. “I was going to say I’d tuck you in, but I guess you don’t need that anymore, do you?”

Now Julie truly did blush, though her father couldn’t see it in the darkness of the house. “It’s still kind of nice,” she said, “every once in a while, anyway.” Kissing her father on the cheek, she skipped up the stairs.

Kevin moved through the house slowly, checking the windows and doors. But as he went from room to room, he had a growing sense of unease, as if something in the house weren’t quite right. When he came back to the kitchen for one last look, he knew something was amiss.