Petals on the Wind

by V. C. Andrews

  Julian held tight to me, his dark eyes soft and shining with love and pride. I couldn't run. I could only say what I was supposed to, and then I was married to the one man I'd sworn I would never allow to touch me intimately. Not only Julian was happy and proud, but also Madame Zolta who beamed at us and gave us her blessings, kissed our cheeks and shed motherly tears. "You've done the right thing, Catherine. You will be so happy together, such a beautiful couple . . . but remember not to make any babies!"

  "Darling, sweetheart, love," Julian whispered when we were on the plane flying over the Atlantic, "don't look so sad. This is our day for rejoicing! I swear you will never be sorry. I'll make you a fantastic husband. I'll never love anyone but you."

  My head bowed down on his shoulder, then I bawled! Crying for everything that should have been mine on my wedding day. Where were my birdsongs, the bells that should chime? Where was the green grass, and the love that was mine? And where was my mother who was the cause of everything gone wrong? Where? Did she cry when she thought of us? Or did she, more likely, just take my notes with the newsclippings and tear them up? Yes, that would be like her, never to face up to what she'd done. How easily she tripped away on her second honeymoon and left us in the care of a merciless grandmother, and back she came, all smiling and happy, telling us of what a wonderful time she had. While we, locked up, had been brutalized and starved, and she'd never even looked at Cory and Came who didn't grow. Never noticed how shadowed their hollow eyes, how thin their weak legs and arms. Never noticed anything she didn't want to see.

  The rain kept coming down, down, forecasting what was ahead. That cold blasting torrent of freezing water put ice on the wings of the plane that was carrying me farther and farther from all those I loved. That ice was in my heart too. And tonight I had to sleep with a man I didn't even like when he wasn't on stage, and dressed in costume, and playing the role of a prince.

  But to give Julian his due, he was all he boasted of being in bed. I forgot who he was, and pretended he was someone else as his kisses played over my body, and not one inch went unexplored, unkissed or uncaressed. Before he finished, I wanted him I was more than willing to have him take me . . . and try to erase the persistent thought that I had just made the worst mistake of my life.

  And I had made many mistakes.

  Labyrinth of Lies

  . Before our bodies had adjusted to jet lag, we went into rehearsals with The Royal Ballet looking on, comparing our style to theirs. Already Madame Z. had told us their way was strictly classical, but we were to do everything in our own way, and were not to be intimidated. "Stick to your guns, keep it pure, but make each dance your very own. Julian, Catherine, as newlyweds, all eyes will be upon you two--so make every scene as romantic as you can. The two of you together touch my heart and make it cry . . . and if you keep it up, what you're doing, you may make ballet history."

  She smiled, and tears filled the deep furrows about her tiny eyes. "Let us all prove that America too can produce the very best!" She broke then and turned her back, so we couldn't see her face crumple. "I luv all of you so much," she sobbed. "Now go away. . . leave me be . . . and make me proud of you."

  We were determined to do our very damndest to make Madame Zolta's name famous once more, not as a dancer, but as a teacher. We practiced until we fell exhausted into our beds.

  The Royal Opera House, Covent Gardens shared its space with the ballet company, and when I first saw it I sucked in my breath and held fast to Julian's hand. The red and gold auditorium seated more than two thousand people. Its sparkling swirl of balconies that rose up to a high dome with a sunburst design in the middle stunned me with its old-fashioned splendor. Soon we were to find out that backstage was far less opulent, with no charm in its crowded dressing rooms and a rabbit warren of tiny offices and workrooms; worst of all, no rehearsal studios at all! Try as I would to find something admirable about British plumbing and heating facilities, I failed utterly. I was forever cold, except under the duress of dancing. I hated the stingy supply of hot water in the

  bathrooms, forcing me to take the quickest bath possible before I froze to death.

  And all the time Julian stayed glued to my side. Privacy was something he'd never heard of and had no respect for. Even when I was in the bathroom he had to be there, so I'd race to lock the door and leave him pounding. "Let me in! I know what you're doing, why all the secrecy?"

  Not only that, he wanted to crawl into my mind and know all my past, all my thoughts, everything I'd done. "And so your mother and father were killed in an auto crash, what happened next?" he asked, holding me in an iron embrace. Why did he have to hear it again? I swallowed. By now I had concocted a believable story about the law wanting to put us in an orphanage, so Chris, Carrie and I had to run away. "We had a little money saved up, you know, from birthdays, Christmas, and such. We caught a bus that would take us to Florida, but Carrie was sick and threw up, and this huge fat black lady came and took us to her 'doctor son.' I guess he felt sorry for us; he took us in . . . and that's all there is to it."

  "All there is to it," he repeated slowly. "There's a hell of a lot you're not telling me! Though I can guess the rest. He saw a rich plum in a young beautiful girl, and that's why he was so damned generous. Cathy-- just how intimate were you with him?"

  "I loved him, and I planned to marry him." "Then why didn't you?" he shot out. "Why did you finally say yes to me?"

  Tact and subtlety were never among my virtues. I grew angry because he was making me explain, when I didn't want to explain. "You were at me all the time!" I stormed. "You made me believe I could learn to love you--but I don't think I can! We've made a mistake, Julian! A horrible mistake!"

  "Don't you say anything like that again, you hear!" Julian sobbed as if I'd wounded him terribly, and I was reminded of Chris. I couldn't go through my life damaging everyone I met, so my rage vanished as I allowed him to take me in his arms. His dark head lowered so he could kiss my neck. "Cathy, I love you so much. More than I ever wanted to love any woman. I've never had anyone love me for myself. Thank you for trying to love me, even though you say you don't."

  It hurt to hear the quiver in his voice. He seemed a small boy who was pleading for the impossible to happen, and perhaps I was doing him an injustice. I turned and wrapped my arms around his neck. "I do want to love you, Jule. I did marry you, and I am committed, so I'll try and make you the best wife I can. But don't push at me! Don't make demands--just let love come as I learn more about you. You're almost a stranger to me, even though we've known each other for three years."

  He winced, as if I ever really knew him, then love would be, indeed, impossible. He doubted himself so much. Oh, God, what had I done? What kind of person was I, that I could turn from an honest, sincere, honorable man and rush headlong into the arms of someone I suspected was a brute?

  Momma had a way of acting impulsively, and being sorry when it was too late. I wasn't like her underneath; I couldn't be! I had too many talents to be like someone who had none . . . none but for making every man fall in love with her, and that wasn't intelligence. No, I wanted to be like Chris . . . and then I floundered again, caught, as always, in the quicksand of her making. All of it was her fault, even my marriage to Julian!

  "Cathy, you're going to have to learn to overlook a lot of flaws," said Julian. "Don't put me up on a pedestal, don't expect perfection. I have feet of clay, as you already know, and if you try to make me into the Prince Charming I think you want . . . you are going to fail. You have that doctor of yours on a pedestal too; I think you might be the kind to put all the men you love up so high they are bound to come tumbling down. Just love me and try not to see what doesn't please you."

  I wasn't good at overlooking faults. I'd always seen Momma's when Chris never had. I always flipped over the brightest coin and looked for the tarnish. Funny Paul's tarnish had seemed all Julia's fault until Amanda came with her horror story. Another reason to hate Momma, making me doubt my instinct!


  Long after Julian returned to bed I sat by the windows and contemplated myself, my eyes fixed on the long shiverlets of ice striking the glass. The weather was only telling me what lay ahead. Spring was back there in the garden with Paul . . . and I'd done it myself. I didn't have to believe Amanda. God help me if I turned out to be like Momma inside, as well as out!

  Our weeks in London were busy, exciting and exhausting--but I dreaded the time when we returned to New York. How long could I keep putting off telling Paul? Not forever. Sooner or later he had to know.

  Shortly before the first day of spring, we flew back to Clairmont, and we taxied to Paul's house. It was the place of our deliverance, and it seemed nothing there had changed. Only I had, for I was coming to devastate a man who didn't need to be hurt again.

  I stared at the boxwoods neatly clipped into cones and spheres, and the wisteria trees that were blooming; azaleas rioted colorfully everywhere, and the big magnolias were ripe and soon to flower, and over everything emerald draped the dangling gray Spanish moss, misting and fogging, to create shreds of living lace. I sighed. If at twilight there was anything more beautiful and somehow romantically, sadly mystical than a live oak dripping with Spanish moss that would in the end kill its host, I'd yet to see it. Love that clung and killed.

  I thought I could take Julian inside, then tell Paul our news--but I couldn't. "Would you mind waiting on the veranda until I tell Paul?" I asked. For some reason he only nodded. I'd expected an argument. Agreeably, for a change, he sat in a white wicker rocker, the same one Paul had been in when first we found him dozing on that Sunday afternoon, after the bus put us off. He'd been forty then. He was now forty-three.

  Quivering a little, I went on alone to open the front door with my own key. I could have telephoned or sent a cable. But I had to see his face and watch his eyes, and try to read his thoughts. I needed to know if I'd really injured his heart, or only wounded his pride and ego.

  No one heard me open the door. No one heard my footsteps on the hard parquet of the foyer. Paul ,was sprawled in his favorite chair before the color television and the fireplace, dozing. His long legs were stretched to rest on the matching ottoman, his ankles crossed and his shoes off. Carrie was sitting crosslegged on the floor near his chair, as needing as always to be near someone who loved her. She was deeply engrossed in her play with the small porcelain dolls. She wore a white sweater banded at the neck and wrists with purple, and over this her red corduroy jumper. She looked like a pretty little doll.

  My eyes went again to Paul. In his light dozing sleep he had the expression of someone anxiously waiting. Even his feet moved often to cross and uncross, while his fingers flexed into fists, then unflexed. His head was thrown back to rest on the high back of his chair, but that too kept moving from side to side . . . dreaming, I thought, maybe of me. Then his face turned in my direction. Did lie sense my presence even in his sleep?

  Ever so slowly his eyelids fluttered open. He yawned and lifted a hand to cover his mouth . . . then stared at me fuzzily. As if I were merely an apparition. "Catherine," he murmured, "is that you?"

  Carrie heard his question, jumped up and came flying to me, crying out my name as I caught her and swung her high. I lavished on her small face a dozen or so kisses, and hugged her so tight she cried out, "Ouch, that hurts!" She looked so pretty, so fresh and well fed. "Oh, Cathy, why did you stay away so long? We wait every day for you to come home, and you never do. We make plans for your wedding, but when you don't write, Dr. Paul says we should wait. Why did you send only postcards? Didn't you have time to write long letters? Chris said you must be awfully busy." She had pulled out of my arms and was back on the floor near Paul's chair, and staring at me reproachfully. "Cathy . . . you forgot all about us, didn't you? All you care about is dancing. You don't need no family when you dance."

  "Yes, I do need a family, Carrie," I said absently, with my eyes fixed on Paul, trying to read what he was thinking.

  Paul got up and came toward me, his eyes locked with mine We embraced and Carrie sat quietly on the floor and watched, as if studying the way a woman should act with the man she loved. His lips only brushed over mine Yet his touch shivered me as Julian's never did. "You look different," he said to me in his slow, soft way. "You've lost weight. You look tired too. Why didn't you telephone or telegraph to let me know you were on the way? I would have met you at the airport."

  "You look thinner too," I said in a hoarse whisper. His weight loss was far more becoming than mine His mustache seemed darker, thicker. I touched it tentatively, longingly, knowing it wasn't mine to feel now-- and he had grown it just to please me.

  "It hurt when you stopped writing to me every day. Did you stop when your schedule became too crowded?"

  "Something like that. It's tiring to dance every day, and try to see as much as possible at the same time. . . . I got so busy, I never had enough time."

  "I subscribe to Variety now."

  "Oh . . ." was all I could say, praying they didn't write about my marriage to Julian. "I've nominated myself as your clipping service, though Chris is keeping a scrapbook too. Whenever he's home, we compare clippings; if one of us has something the other doesn't, we have it photocopied." He paused as if puzzled by my expression, my demeanor, something. "They are all rave reviews, Catherine, why do you look so . . so . . . emotionless?"

  "Tired, like you said." I hung my head not knowing what to say, or how to meet his eyes. "And how've you been?"

  "Catherine, is something the matter? You act strange." Carrie was staring at me . . . as if Paul had expressed her thoughts too. I gazed around the big room filled with the beauty of all that Paul had collected. Sunlight through the ivory sheers shone on the miniatures in his tall etagere with the glass shelves, the black, gold-veined mirror behind them, and lit from the top and bottom. How easy to hide away in looking around, pretending everything was all right, when everything was all wrong.

  "Catherine, speak to me!" Paul cried. "There is something wrong!"

  I sat down, knees weak, my throat tight. Why couldn't I ever do anything right? How could he have lied to me, deceived me, when he knew I'd had enough of lying and deceit? And how could he look so trustworthy still?

  "When will Chris be home?"

  "Friday, for Easter vacation." His long look was reflective, as if he thought it strange when usually Chris and I kept in constant communication. Then there was Henny to greet and hug and kiss . . . and I could put it off no longer . . . though I found a way. "Paul, I brought Julian home with me. . . . He's out on the veranda waiting. Is that all right?"

  He gave me the strangest look, and then nodded. "Of course. Ask him in. " Then he turned to Henny. "Set two more places, Henny."

  Julian came in, and, as I'd cautioned him, he didn't say a word to let anyone know we were married. Both of us had taken off our wedding rings and had them in our pockets. It was the strangest of quiet meals, and even when Julian and I handed out the gifts the stiffness grew, and Carrie only glanced at her bracelet of rubies and amethysts, though Henny beamed a broad smile when she put on her solid gold bracelet.

  "Thank you for the lovely figurine of yourself, Cathy," said Paul, putting it carefully aside on the closest table. "Julian, would you please excuse Cathy and me for a while? I'd like to have a private talk with her." He said this as a doctor requesting a private interview with the responsible family member of a critically ill patient. Julian nodded and smiled at Carrie. She glared back at him.

  "I'm going to bed," stated Carrie defiantly. "Good night, Mr. Marquet. I don't know why you had to help Cathy buy me that bracelet, but thank you anyway."

  Julian was left in the living room to stare at the TV as Paul and I took off for a stroll in his

  magnificent gardens. Already his fruit trees were in bloom, and climbing red, pink and white roses made a brilliant display on the white trellises.

  "What's wrong, Catherine?" Paul asked. "You come home to me and bring along another man, so maybe you don't have to
explain at all. I can guess."

  Quickly I put out my hand to seize hold of his. "Stop! Don't say anything!' Falteringly and very slowly I began to tell him about his sister's visit. I told him I knew now that Julia was still alive, and though I could understand his motivation, he should have told me the truth. "Why did you lead me to believe she was dead, Paul? Did you think me such a child I couldn't bear to hear it? I could have understood if you had told me. I loved you, don't you ever doubt that I did! I didn't give to you because I thought I owed you anything I gave because I wanted to give, because I desperately needed you. I knew better than to expect marriage, and I was happy enough in the relationship we had. I would have been your mistress forever--but you should have told me about Julia! You should have known me well enough to realize I'm impulsive, I act without thought when I'm hurt--and it hurt terribly that night Amanda came and told me your wife was still alive!

  "Lies!" I cried. `Oh, how I hate liars! You of all people to lie to me! Besides Chris, there was no one I trusted more than you."

  He'd stopped strolling, as I had. The nude marble statues were all around, mocking us. Laughing at love gone awry. For now we were like them, frozen and cold.

  "Amanda," he said, rolling her name on his tongue as something bitter and fit to be spit out. "Amanda and her half-truths. You ask why--why didn't you ask why before you flew to London? Why didn't you give me the chance to defend myself?"

  "How can you defend lies!" I bit back meanly, wanting him to hurt as I'd hurt that night when Amanda slammed out of the theater.

  He walked away to lean against the oldest oak, and from his pocket he drew a pack of cigarettes.

  "Paul, I'm sorry. Tell me now what your defense would have been."

  Slowly he puffed on the cigarette, and exhaled smoke. That smoke came my way and weaved around my head, neck, body--and chased off the scent of roses. "Remember when you came," he began, taking his time, "you were so bitter from your loss of Cory, to say nothing of how you felt about your mother. How could I tell you my own sordid story when already you'd known too much pain? How was I to know you and I would become lovers? You seemed to me only a beautiful, haunted child--though you've touched me deeply--always you've touched me. You touch me now, standing there with your accusing eyes. Though you are right. I should have told you.' He sighed heavily.