Ruby l-1

by V. C. Andrews

  I breathed relief when the bus arrived on time. I got on quickly, but following Lyle's advice, I acted as calmly and innocently as I could. I took my seat and sat back with my magazine. Moments later, the bus continued on its journey to New Orleans. We went right past the main entrance of the institution. When it was well behind us, I let out a breath. I was so happy to be free, I couldn't help but cry. Afraid someone would notice, I wiped away my tears quickly and closed my eyes and suddenly thought about Uncle Jean stuttering, "Jib . . . jib . . ."

  The rhythm of the tires on the macadam highway beat out the same chant: "Jib . . . jib . . . jib."

  What was he trying to tell me? I wondered.

  When the New Orleans' skyline came into view, I actually considered not returning to my home and instead returning to the bayou. I wasn't looking forward to the greeting I would receive from Daphne, but then some of Grandmère Catherine's Cajun pride found its way into my backbone and I sat up straight and determined. After all, my father did love me. I was a Dumas and I did belong with him, too. Daphne had no right to do the things she had done to me.

  By the time I got on the right city bus and then changed for the streetcar and arrived at the house, I was sure Dr. Cheryl had called Daphne and informed her I was missing. That was confirmed for me the moment Edgar greeted me at the door and I took one look at his face.

  "Madame Dumas is waiting for you," he said, shifting his eyes to indicate all was not well. "She's in the parlor." "Where's my father, Edgar?" I demanded.

  He shook his head first and then he replied in a softer voice, "Upstairs, mademoiselle."

  "Inform Madame Dumas that I've gone up to see him first," I ordered. Edgar widened his eyes, surprised at my insubordination.

  "No, you're not!" Daphne shouted from the parlor doorway the moment I stepped into the entryway. "You're marching yourself right in here first." She stood there, her arm extended, pointing to the room. Her voice was cold, commanding. Edgar quickly moved away and retreated through the door that would take him through the dining room and into the kitchen, where I was sure he would make a report to Nina.

  I took a few steps toward Daphne. She kept her arm out, her finger toward the parlor.

  "How dare you try to tell me what to do and what not to do after what you've done," I charged, walking toward her slowly, my head high.

  "I did what I thought was necessary to protect this family," she replied coldly, lowering her arm slowly.

  "No, you didn't. You did what you thought was necessary to get rid of me, to keep me away from my father," I accused, meeting her furious gaze with a furious gaze of my own. She faltered a bit at my aggressive stance, her eyes shifting. "You're jealous of his love for me. You've been jealous ever since I arrived and you hate me because I remind you that he was once more in love with someone else."

  "That's ridiculous. That's just another ridiculous Cajun—"

  "Stop it!" I shouted. "Stop talking about the Cajun people like that. You know the truth; you know I wasn't kidnapped and sold to any Cajun family. You have no right to act superior. Few Cajun people I've known would stoop to do the sort of deceitful, horrible thing you tried to do to me."

  "How dare you shout at me like that?" she said, trying to recover her superior demeanor, but her lips quivered and her body began to tremble. "How dare you!"

  "How dare you do what you did at the institution!" I retorted. "My father is going to hear all about it. He's going to know the truth and . . ."

  She smiled.

  "You little fool. Go on upstairs to him. Go on and gaze upon your savior, your father, who sits in his brother's shrine of a room and moans and groans. I'm thinking about having him committed soon, if you must know. I can't go on like this."

  She stepped toward me with renewed confidence.

  "Who do you think has been running things around here? Who do you think makes this all possible? Your weak father? Ha! What do you think happens when he falls into one of his melancholic states? Do you think Dumas Enterprises just sits around and waits for him to snap out of it?

  "No," she cried, stabbing herself with her thumb so hard it made me wince, "it always falls to me to save the day. I've been conducting business for years. Why, Pierre doesn't even know how much money we have or where it's located."

  "I don't believe you," I said, but not with as much confidence as I had at first. She laughed.

  "Believe what you like. Go on." She stepped back. "Go up to him and tell him about the horrible thing I tried to do to you," she said, and then stepped toward me again, lowering her voice sharply and narrowing her eyes into hateful slits. "And I'll explain to him and to everyone who wants or has to know how you've been so disruptive since you arrived, you nearly caused a fatal family crisis. I'll force the Andreas boy to confess to your sexual games in the art studio and have Gisselle testify to your friendship with that whore from Storyville." Her eyes widened and then hardened to rivet on me as she continued.

  "I'll have people believing you were a teenage prostitute in the bayou. For all I know, you were."

  "That's a lie, a dirty, horrible lie," I cried, but she didn't soften. Her face, the face with the alabaster complexion and those beautiful eyes, turned into the cold visage of a statue as she gazed down at me.

  "Is it?" She smiled again, a small, tight smile that drew her lips into thin lines. "I already have Dr. Cheryl's preliminary findings. He thinks you're obsessed with sex and will so testify if I like. And now you've gone and run away from the institution, embarrassing us even further."

  I shook my head, but there was no denying her vicious determination to overcome my defiance.

  "I'm going to see Daddy," I said in almost a whisper. "I'm going to tell him everything."

  "Go on." She lunged forward and grabbed my shoulders to turn me to the stairway. "Go on, you little Cajun fool. Go tell your Daddy." She pushed me toward the steps. I threw her an angry look and then charged up the stairs, my tears flying off my cheeks.

  When I got to the upstairs landing, I saw the door to Uncle Jean's room was shut tight, but I had to get Daddy to see me; I had to get him to let me in. I approached slowly and knocked and then pressed my cheek to the door and sobbed.

  "Daddy, please . . . please, open up and let me in. Please, let me talk to you and tell you what Daphne did to me. I saw Uncle Jean, Daddy. I was with him. Please," I begged. I continued to sob softly. Finally, when he didn't open the door, I sank to the floor and embraced myself, my shoulders heaving with my deeper sobs. After all that had been done to me and after my great effort to return, I was still shut out; Daphne was still victorious. I sucked in some air and let my head fall back against the door. Then I let it fall back again and again until finally the door was pulled open and I looked up at Daddy:

  His eyes were bloodshot, his hair disheveled. His shirt was out of his pants and his tie was loose. He looked like he had slept in his clothes. He had an unshaven face.

  I struggled to my feet and ground the tears out of my eyes quickly.

  "Daddy, I must talk to you," I said. He threw me a quick glance of deepest despair. Then his shoulders slumped and he backed into the room to let me enter.

  The candles were nearly burned out around Uncle Jean's pictures so the room was very dimly lit. Daddy retreated to a chair by the pictures and sat down. His face was shadowed and hidden in the deepening gloom.

  "What is it, Ruby?" he said, speaking as though it took all of his strength to pronounce the four words. I rushed to him and seized his hand, falling to my knees at his feet.

  "Daddy, she took me to the institution this morning, supposedly to see Uncle Jean for his birthday, but when we get there, she had them lock me up. She tried to have them keep me there. It was horrible, but a nice young man helped me escape."

  He raised his head and gazed at me with his sad eyes showing just a hint of surprise. He shook his head in a bewildered fashion, the tears still eking from beneath his lids.

  "Who did this?"

  "Daphne,
" I said. "Daphne."

  "Daphne?"

  "But I got to see Uncle Jean, Daddy. I sat with him and spoke to him."

  "You did?" he asked, his interest growing. "How is he?"

  "He looks very good," I said, wiping the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand. "But he's afraid of people and doesn't talk to anyone."

  Daddy nodded and lowered his head again.

  "Except, I got him to say something, Daddy."

  "You did?" he replied, his interest quickly returning. "Yes. I told him to tell me something I could bring back to you and he said 'jib.' What did he mean, Daddy?"

  "Jib? He said that?"

  I nodded. Then I had to tell him the rest.

  "Afterward, he started to scream and held his head in his hands. They had to take him back to his room."

  "Poor Jean," Daddy said. "My poor brother. What have I done?" he asked in a heavy, flat voice. One of the candles went out and a shadow came to darken his eyes even more.

  "What do you mean, Daddy? Why did he, say 'jib'? Is it what this young man sitting beside me thought . . . something to do with sailing?"

  "Yes," Daddy said. He sat back, his gaze far-off now. He looked like he could see into the past. And then he began to speak like one in a trance. "It was a nice day when we started out. I wasn't anxious to go at first. Jean kept taunting me, making fun of me for being so unathletic. 'You're as pale as a bank teller,' he said. 'No wonder Daphne would rather spend her time with me. Come on, get yourself into the fresh air. Let's test those muscles and limbs.'

  "Finally, I gave in and accompanied him to the lake. The sky had already begun to change. There were storm clouds hovering along the horizon. I warned him about it, but he laughed and said I was just trying to find another excuse. We started sailing. I wasn't as ignorant about it as I pretended and I didn't like my younger brother telling me to do this or that like some galley slave.

  "He seemed particularly arrogant to me that day. How I hated his self-confidence. Why didn't he have any doubts about himself like I had? Why was he so secure in the presence of women, especially Daphne?

  "The clouds mounted, expanding, mushrooming, darkening, and the wind grew fiercer. Our sailboat rose and fell as the water became rougher and rougher. Every time I urged Jean to turn us back to shore, he laughed at me for not being adventurous enough.

  "This is where we test our manhood,' he declared. 'We look Nature in the eye and we don't blink.'

  "I pleaded with him to be more sensible and he continued to mock me for being too sensible. 'Women don't like men to be reasonable and sensible and logical all the time, Pierre,' he said They want a little danger, a little insecurity. If you want to win Daphne, take her out here on a day like this and let her scream as the spray hits her face and the sailboat tips and totters like it's doing now,' he cried.

  "But the storm grew worse than even he expected. I was angry at him for putting us in this unnecessary danger. I was angry and jealous and during our battle against the storm, when he was struggling with the sail . . ." He sighed, closed his eyes, and then concluded, "I sent the jib flying around and it struck him in the head. It wasn't an accident," he confessed, and lowered his head to his hands.

  "Oh, Daddy." I reached up and took his hand as he sobbed. "I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt him so badly. I'm sure you regretted it the moment you did it."

  "Yes," he said, lifting his face from his palms. "I did. But that didn't change things and look where he is and what he is now. Look at what he was," he said, lifting one of the silver framed photographs. "My beautiful brother." Tears of remembrance clouded his eyes as he gazed at him. Then he sighed so deeply, I thought his heart had given out, and lowered his chin to his chest.

  "He's still your beautiful brother, Daddy. And I think that he could make enough progress to leave that place. I really do. When I spoke to him and told him things, I felt he really understood."

  "Did you?" Daddy's eyes lit up as he raised his head again. "Oh, how I wish that were true. I'd give anything now . . . all my wealth, if that were true."

  "It is, Daddy. You must go to him more often. Maybe you should get him better treatment, find another doctor, another place," I suggested. "They don't seem to be doing anything more than making him comfortable and taking your money," I said bitterly.

  "Yes. Maybe." He paused and looked at me and smiled. "You are a very lovely young lady, Ruby. If I was to believe in any forgiveness, it would be that you were sent here to me as an indication of that. I don't deserve you."

  "I was almost shut away, too, Daddy," I said, returning to my original theme.

  "Yes," he said. "Tell me more about that."

  I described how Daphne had tricked me into accompanying her to the institution and all that had followed after-ward. He listened intently, growing more and more upset.

  "You've got to get hold of yourself, Daddy," I said. "She just told me she might have you committed, too. Don't let her do these things to you and to me and even to Gisselle."

  "Yes," he said. "You're right. I've wallowed in self-pity too long and let things get out of hand."

  "We've got to end all the lying, Daddy. We've got to cast the lies off like too much weight on a boat or a canoe. The lies are sinking us," I told him. He nodded. I stood up.

  "Gisselle has to know the truth, Daddy, the truth about our birth. Daphne shouldn't be afraid of the truth either. Let her be our mother because of her actions and not because of a mountain of lies."

  Daddy sighed.

  "You're right." He rose, brushed back his hair, and straightened his tie, tightening the knot. Then he stuffed his shirt into his pants neatly. "I'm going down to speak with Daphne. She won't do anything like this to you again, Ruby. I promise."

  "And I'll go in to see Gisselle and tell her the truth, but she won't believe me, Daddy. You'll have to come up and speak with her, too," I told him. He nodded.

  "I will." He kissed me and held me for a moment. "Gabrielle would be so proud of you, so proud."

  He straightened up, pulled back his shoulders, and left. I gazed at Uncle Jean's photographs for a moment and then I went to tell my sister who her mother really was.

  "Where have you been?" Gisselle demanded. "Mother's been home for hours and hours. I kept asking for you and they kept telling me you weren't here. Then Mother came by and told me you ran away. I knew you wouldn't stay away long," she added confidently. "Where would you go, back to the bayou and live with those dirty swamp people?"

  Because I didn't say anything immediately, her smile of self-satisfaction evaporated.

  "Why are you standing there like that? Where were you?" she wailed. "I needed you. I can't stand that nurse anymore."

  "Mother lied to you, Gisselle," I said calmly.

  "Lied?"

  I walked over to her bed and sat on it to face her in her wheelchair.

  "I didn't run away," I said. "Don't you remember? We were going to the institution to see Uncle Jean, only—"

  "Only what?"

  "She had other intentions. She brought me there to leave me there as a patient," I said. "I was tricked and locked up like some mentally disturbed person."

  "You were?" Her eyes widened.

  "A nice young man helped me escape. I've already told Daddy what she did."

  Gisselle shook her head in disbelief.

  "I can't believe she would do such a thing."

  "I can," I replied quickly. "Because she's not really our mother."

  "What?" Gisselle started to smile, but I stopped her and seized her full attention when I reached out to take her hand into mine.

  "You and I were born in the bayou, Gisselle. Years ago, Daddy would go there with our grandfather Dumas to hunt. He saw and fell in love with our real mother, Gabrielle Landry, and he made her pregnant. Grandpère Dumas wanted a grandchild, and Daphne couldn't have any, so he made a bargain with our other grandfather, Grandpère Jack, to buy the child. Only, there were two of us. Grandmère Catherine kept me a secret and Grandp�
�re Jack gave you to the Dumas family."

  Gisselle said nothing for a moment and then pulled her hand from mine.

  "You are crazy," she said, "if you think I’ll ever believe such a story."

  "It's true," I said calmly. "The story of the kidnapping was invented after I turned up here to keep people believing Daphne was our real mother."

  Gisselle wheeled herself back, shaking her head. "I'm not a Cajun, too. I'm not," she declared.

  "Cajun, Creole, rich, poor, that's not important, Gisselle. The truth is important. It's time to face it and go on," I said dryly. I was very tired now, the heavy weight of one of the most emotional and difficult days of my life finally settling over my shoulders. "I never met our mother because she died right after we were born, but from everything Grandmère Catherine told me about her and from what Daddy told me, I know we would have loved her dearly. She was very beautiful."

  Gisselle shook her head, but my quiet revelation had begun to sink in and her lips trembled, too. I saw her eyes begin to cloud.

  "Wait," I said, and opened our adjoining door. I went to the nightstand and found Mother's picture and brought it to her. "Her name was Gabrielle," I said, showing the picture to Gisselle. She glanced at it quickly and then turned away.

  "I don't want to look at some Cajun woman you say is our mother."

  "She is. And what's more . . . she had another child . . . we have a half brother . . . Paul."

  "You're crazy. You ARE crazy. You do belong in the institution. I want Daddy. I want Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" she screamed.

  Mrs. Warren came running from her room.

  "What's going on now?" she demanded.

  "I want my father. Get my father."

  "I'm not a maid around here.

  "GET HIM!" Gisselle cried. Her face turned as red as a beet as she struggled to shout with all her might. Mrs. Warren looked at me.

  "I'll get him," I said, and left Gisselle with her nurse cajoling her to calm down.