“Mama,” Corinne pleaded. “Is it so wrong for me to want to live and be happy again? Is it so wrong for me to want to attend parties again, and dress in beautiful clothes again, and see my friends again?”
John Amos looked up from the Bible, but he didn’t stop reading. Corinne stood there impatiently until he reached the end of a section and paused.
“I can’t get Daddy to talk to me,” she said. “He won’t even come to the door.” She looked from me to John Amos, who put the Bible on his lap and sat back. Sometimes, when he looked at her, he reminded me of a man studying a fine jewel, turning it over and over in his fingers to catch the way the light was reflected by it.
“Your father is in deep meditation at the moment,” he said. “You really shouldn’t disturb him.”
“But how long will this deep meditation go on? He doesn’t eat with us; he doesn’t sleep in his room, and now he won’t even talk to me,” she protested.
“You of all people should feel sorry for him,” I told her. I put on a stern face. “And appreciate what he’s going through.”
“I do. That’s why I want him to come out, but he won’t come to the door when I knock and call. I can’t stand this … this horrible sadness.”
“At this particularly sad time,” John Amos began, “we shouldn’t be thinking about our own discomfort. It is very selfish to do so. You should be thinking about your lost brother,” he added softly but firmly.
“I have thought about him and thought about him. But he’s dead and gone. There is nothing I can do anymore to bring him back!” she exclaimed, her eyes wide, her face filled with pent-up energy.
“You can pray for him,” John said softly. I saw how his calm, pious tone added to her disappointment.
“But I have. How much can I pray?” She turned to me.
“You can pray until you stop thinking of yourself first and think of him. It doesn’t surprise me that you are this way now. Your father has spoiled you and made you self-centered,” I told her. She pouted. I knew how frustrated she was. Corinne could not tolerate refusal, and refusal was everywhere around her now.
“Join us in prayer,” John said, gesturing toward her empty chair.
“I’m going to go back to Daddy to try to get him to talk to me,” she said, and turned away quickly.
“Corinne!” I called.
“It’s all right,” John said. “Let her go for now. I will speak to her later.” He turned back to the Bible.
I sat with John and prayed and studied the Bible and waited. The lights were low, memorial candles burning everywhere. Foxworth Hall had been turned into a tomb. Through the imposed silence, the slightest footsteps echoed. Gloom not only hung about the walls of Foxworth Hall, turning everything gray and dull; it hung from the trees, filling the world with cobwebs of sorrow. It rained on and off for days, the drops tapping on the windows and roof, hammering in the misery.
John Amos was a great comfort during these days. Dressed in black, his face pale and ascetic, he moved about the rooms with the grace and stillness of a monk. He commanded the other servants with a gesture, a look. No one raised his voice for fear of shattering the solemn air he created whenever he entered a room. He seemed to slide over the floor, ooze over the walls and around corners. Sometimes he simply materialized in a room. Even the maids who brought out my dishes and glasses struggled to maintain the greatest silence, watching him carefully out of the corners of their eyes to be sure his face showed no disapproval.
One night after I had eaten, John brought me my coffee. He put the coffee cup and saucer down before me as though they were made of air, and stepped back. I looked down the long table and thought about Malcolm still refusing to come out of his study.
“How long does he intend to remain in there?” I asked. I was beginning to feel Corinne’s impatience.
“He has become Job,” John Amos responded in a stentorian voice. He sounded like an Old Testament prophet predicting Malcolm’s destiny. He didn’t look directly at me when he spoke. It was as if he were speaking to a full congregation of devoted followers. “Only now when he asks why hast God forsaken him, he knows the answer. The Lord has smitten his two sons, taken from him his male seed, his Foxworth lineage, something he cherished almost as much as life itself.”
“You spoke to him directly about it?” I asked, fascinated by any change in Malcolm. I had always thought him molded so solidly in his form that the slightest change would crack and shatter him.
“We knelt beside each other on the floor of the library just an hour ago,” John said. “I recited the prayers. I told him God was wrathful and angry and that all we could hope for was some respite from His vengeance. Knowing what I knew of his life, I talked about King David and his taking of Bathsheba, how David had turned his back on his God and how God brought down His vengeance on his house. Malcolm understood.
“He no longer blames you or the boys for what happened to them; he blames himself and he is trying to come to terms with that. He understands that he can do such a thing only by giving himself over to Jesus Christ our savior,” John said, his eyes lifted toward heaven. “Let us pray for one another,” he added. We both bowed our heads, he standing beside me, me sitting at the table.
“Oh, Lord, help us to understand Your ways and help us to help one another. Forgive us our weaknesses and permit us to grow stronger from our travail.”
“Amen,” I said.
The mood in the house did change when Malcolm finally emerged from his self-imposed exile. He was indeed different. He looked physically weaker and older, and in many ways he reminded me of Garland during his final year. He didn’t stand as straight or walk with his usual self-confidence and arrogance. When he spoke to me or to the servants, his voice was lower and he often looked away, as though facing anyone straight on would expose his guilt.
His complexion never regained its healthy, virile look; his blue eyes dimmed like weakened light bulbs. He moved through Foxworth Hall like another shadow, robed in a funereal atmosphere, spending most of his time reading the Bible and talking with John Amos. Sometimes the three of us sat together and read the Good Book. John would do most of the reading and a good deal of the explaining.
I felt that God had sent John Amos to us, that John’s letters to me and his arrival at Mal’s funeral was all part of His overall plan for Malcolm and myself.
It was Corinne whom John saw as the greatest challenge. She was rebellious. She said, “If God is a kind God, He wouldn’t ask us to give up all the pleasures the world has to offer us.”
“Who said God was kind?” John Amos posed the question.
But Corinne would just giggle and shrug her shoulders. “I believe God made us to find happiness on earth,” she would say, tossing her head. Sometimes she would even chuck John Amos under the chin and admonish him to cheer up. “God said let there be light.”
I noticed that she could never enter a room without his watching her and speaking to her and getting her to speak to him. He seemed to dote on her in much the same manner Malcolm had.
He was not beyond bringing things up to her room to her. But soon she was back at school and we were childless again.
“It is so good to have you with us,” I told John, “at these, our greatest times of need. Even Malcolm has come to believe that and I am grateful.”
“I am glad to be here, Olivia.”
That summer Corinne blossomed into a truly beautiful young woman. She looked more and more like Alicia every day. The Foxworth traits she inherited only complimented the delicate features her mother possessed. Her hair grew more golden as the summer progressed, her eyes took on the deep blue of the midsummer sky, and her complexion was as soft as a summer cloud. It was as though some divinely inspired artist had fashioned her. Corinne knew how beautiful she was. I could see her confidence and her ego growing. She revealed it in her walk, the way she held her shoulders back and her head high. She knew the power that such beauty possessed too. I saw the way she looked at me
n, flirted with her eyes and her laugh, even turning her coquettish devices on John Amos. It was already important to her that when she walked into a room, all eyes be on her.
With midsummer beauty now in and out and around our house, I felt a sense of optimism and hope. Because of our new faith in God, Malcolm and I had settled into a more comfortable and cordial relationship. Our strengthened faith and commitment was our common ground.
And so when the letter from Alicia arrived, I felt it was part of God’s great new design for us. I recognized the handwriting immediately. The letter was addressed to Malcolm, and when I looked at the return address, I felt excited. Gradually, through Corinne’s development from a child into a woman, Alicia had been coming back to us. Now, when she was looking so much like her mother and Alicia was heavily on my mind, Alicia’s letter had arrived. From the name she used, I quickly gathered that she had remarried.
I held the letter in my hand for a long moment, considering what Malcolm’s reaction would be when he discovered I had opened and read it. But then I thought, after what had happened and after what I had done, anything pertaining to Alicia now was my affair as well as his. He had no right to privacy when it came to her. I opened the envelope and took out the scented pink stationery.
Dear Malcolm,
By the time you have received this letter, I shall be that much closer to the end of what has become a rather sad and disappointing existence. But be assured I am not attempting to encourage any sympathy for myself. I am beyond that and I have come to understand and accept the inevitability of my own impending death. Knowing your love of details, I will tell you that I have been diagnosed as suffering from breast cancer, a cancer that has spread too rapidly for there to be any medical rescue. No handsome young and brilliant doctor will sweep into my hospital room and work any magic. Death’s grip is too tight. The Grim Reaper, as Garland used to say, has his hand firmly about my throat. But enough about me.
I remarried shortly after leaving Foxworth Hall to return to Richmond. I married a doctor, but a small-town general practitioner, whose patients often paid him in jars of fruit and pickles. Despite my money, we lived a rather simple life in his modest home. In fact, he didn’t want to know about my money. It was always a source of pride for my new, devoted husband that he be the provider.
So I took your advice and left my fortune in the stock market, but unfortunately, not being very wise about these matters, I did not withdraw any of it in time to avoid the famous Black Monday. To put it simply, I lost all of my fortune in the Depression. Of course, my husband, being a man of simple tastes, did not mourn this loss.
Shortly after that he passed away from a chronic illness that suddenly intensified. Being the man that he was, he kept the seriousness of his illness a secret from me until it was no longer possible for him to do so.
However, all this has left me with another great deep and tragic disappointment—my inability to send Christopher to medical school.
Christopher has grown into a fine young man, as handsome as his father. He is very bright and at the top of his high school graduating class. All of his teachers encourage him to go on in the pursuit of his dream to become a physician.
Now, with my life coming to its tragic end, my fortune gone, my new husband no longer around to be of assistance, I have no one to turn to but to you. I beg of you, consider my request, if not for my sake or for Christopher’s, then for Garland’s.
Find a place in your heart for him. Take him in and send him to medical school. He will be an endless source of pride to you.
Of course, he knows nothing about Corinne or about the events that led up to my departure from Foxworth Hall. He knows he is the son of Garland Foxworth and he has a stepbrother, but other than that, he knows very little about his family background. I will leave it up to you to tell him what you wish.
I know that Olivia will love Christopher and he will love her. I remember how wonderfully she treated him while I was up in the north wing. He is a polite and respectful young man who will bring only joy and happiness to you both.
Malcolm, I beg you from a dying bed, to find it in your heart to grant this wish. Put aside any bad feelings you might have for me and for the sadness we all experienced and think only of your father’s son, a boy driven to become a doctor, and help him reach his goal.
I know God will bless you for it.
Hopefully yours,
Alicia
I put the letter down, and sighed. Memories of caring for little Christopher rushed back. Surely the return of this golden-haired child was God’s way of forgiving us our sins. He had taken Mal and Joel and now he was giving us Christopher.
Even Alicia’s tragic end was part of God’s plan. From what she said in her letter, I couldn’t help but believe Malcolm had invested her funds in poor stocks as a form of some revenge. He was obligated to rectify his wrong. I was determined to convince him. Before doing so, I discussed my thoughts with John Amos and he was in total agreement.
I waited for Malcolm in a front salon, prepared to discuss the matter. He returned home from his work somewhat earlier than usual, looking fatigued.
“Malcolm, I must speak with you,” I said. Without responding, he followed me into the salon and sat down on the blue velvet settee. I remained standing, Alicia’s letter in my hand.
“A letter arrived today, a letter from Alicia,” I said, and for the first time in weeks, his eyes brightened and his face filled with interest.
“From Alicia? What does she want?” For a moment his renewed energy and obvious excitement disturbed me. I made him wait. I walked to the chair across from him, contemplated sitting in it, and then turned back to him. He was practically on the edge of the settee. “Did she write to you?” he asked, his voice rising with anticipation.
“No. The letter was addressed to you. But as soon as I saw from whom it had come, I opened it. I have a right,” I added quickly.
“What does she want?” he demanded.
“She is dying, dying of cancer; and she is bankrupt. I will give you the letter so you can read the details, but the most important issue is Christopher.”
“Christopher? Why?”
“He is seventeen; he has graduated from high school, and he wants to be a doctor. Apparently, he has the capability to do so, but she no longer has the funds. She wants us to take him in and send him to medical school,” I said, and thrust the letter at him. He took it greedily and perused its contents quickly, his face changing expression until it returned to his characteristic stern look.
“I feel sorry for her, but the boy should make his own way in the world,” he said.
“I think not, and neither does John Amos. We both think this is God’s will,” I added quickly.
“God’s will? How is this God’s will? Are we to take in every waif?” he asked, gesturing at the doorway as though tens of thousands of orphans waited for entry.
“I hardly think your father’s son is a waif, Malcolm. And he is your stepbrother,” I said, pressing my lips together tightly.
“Just because she squandered a fortune, a—”
“A fortune you invested for her and never advised her about properly,” I said quickly. “Malcolm, whatever your motives were then no longer matter. We have been given an opportunity to rectify the mistakes of the past. It is we who will be squandering if we don’t take up this chance to do what is right and good. You must make peace with your troubled soul, and by caring for your father’s son, a promising young man now in terrible distress, you will have gone far toward doing so. Alicia is dying. We cannot turn our backs on her at this time,” I said.
He stared up at me for a long moment and then looked at the letter again.
“What kind of a marriage did she make for herself after she left here if the man, a doctor, left nothing for Christopher?” he asked, looking down at the letter as though he could see and question Alicia through it.
“That is beside the point. Anyway, Christopher was not her new husband�
�s son. He is not of his blood; he is of yours. We have more reason to provide for him. Malcolm,” I repeated, “it is God’s will.”
After a moment he nodded slowly.
“Very well,” he said, and sat back. “Send word and let it be so.”
I left him in the salon, the letter clutched in his hand, his eyes locked in a vision of the past. I did not wish to question what it was he saw. Instead, I reported the decision to John and he saw to the correspondence and made the arrangements for Christopher’s arrival.
Malcolm’s only requirement was that I explain the situation to Corinne. I knew that he didn’t trust himself to do so. I called her to my bedroom, something I rarely did, and sat her down to listen. She was intrigued from the moment I began. She looked up at me expectantly, her eyes burning with interest. I stood before her, my hands behind my back for a moment, phrasing my thoughts carefully before speaking.
“As you know, your father’s father remarried when he was quite along in his years and he married a woman considerably younger than he was.”
“Yes, Alicia,” she said quickly, “and she slept in the Swan Room.”
“Alicia and Garland, your grandfather, had one child, a son named Christopher. I know that Mal and Joel often spoke about him.” She nodded slightly. “Your father never approved of Alicia, nor did he approve of his father’s marriage. When your grandfather died, your father insisted Alicia leave Foxworth Hall with her son. She did so. She returned to her home in Richmond, where she eventually remarried a man who, unfortunately, suffered a serious illness and died as well.”
“How dreadful,” Corinne said.
“Yes. Even more dreadful, perhaps, she lost all her income in the terrible stock market crash and became quite poor. Now we have learned that Alicia herself is dying of cancer. Her son is seventeen and quite brilliant. She has written to us requesting that we take Christopher in and provide him with a college education so he can become a doctor. Your father and I have agreed and Christopher will be arriving here at Foxworth shortly. He will go on to Yale, your father’s alma mater, but this will be his home until he graduates and sets up a practice.”
Garden of Shadows (Dollanganger) Page 26
