Beyond Eden

by Catherine Coulter

  “Well,” Sydney began, “I should give the room a lightness and spaciousness that the heavy dark pieces preclude. But there’s a consideration of effect, Father, and of period.” And she continued with a discussion of fabrics and “looks” and methods of changing lighting and tone and the feel of a room. “It takes time and thought and, of course, good taste. I think you should consider taking it on yourself, Father.”

  Royce nodded to her as he continued to carve the rack of lamb. “I just might, in time,” he said.

  “Do pass the vegetables, Holly dear,” Sydney said. “That’s right, pile up your plate with the green beans, not the potatoes.”

  “What do you mean, Royce, that you’ll do the decorating?”

  “Why, there was no ambiguity, was there?” Royce said to his wife.

  Lindsay said aloud, “I would like to propose a toast. To Grandmother and to my mother. We will miss them.”

  Royce smiled at that and raised his wineglass. “How very pious that sounds. But as you wish, Lindsay, not that you ever really knew either of them. Of course, you didn’t even bother coming home at Christmas, and your grandmother was very disappointed. She mentioned your absence once or twice, didn’t she, Holly? As for your mother, I doubt she noticed your truancy, but one never knows with a drunk, does one?” He then sent a toast toward Holly.

  It was as if a curtain had come down in a final call. It was as if the past was behind that curtain and wouldn’t come into view again. It wouldn’t reach her again. It was gone. Lindsay rose slowly, gently pushing her chair back from the table. She was no longer a child. She was an adult and she could do what she wished to do, and what she wished to do was leave this room with all its pain and ugliness. She said to the table at large, “What time is the funeral tomorrow?”

  “At ten o’clock in the morning. Sit down, Lindsay.”

  “I think not, Father. At St. Mary’s?”

  “Yes. Sit down, my girl. You may put on your airs in New York, but I won’t put up with your bad manners and ill breeding here in my home. God, you’re so much like your mother.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Lindsay said. “Good night,” she added to Sydney and Holly. A sedate walk, she said over and over to herself as she walked from the dining room. Keep it slow. You’re an adult, not a child for him to intimidate or order around. Not anymore. She realized once she’d reached her room that she was quite hungry. Thank God for back stairs. She walked down to the kitchen, pausing as she heard Mrs. Dreyfus saying to Dorrey, “The disrespect floors me, Dorrey, absolutely floors me. I won’t stay here now that Mrs. Gates is gone, dear lady. I’m giving the current Mrs. Foxe my notice after the funeral on Friday.”

  “She’ll not like that,” Dorrey said with satisfaction. “That’ll leave the weekend for her to do for herself. No, she’ll not like that at all.”

  Good, Lindsay thought. She wouldn’t be here for Holly to fire her.

  “Our Lindsay is better off in New York, I do know that,” Dorrey continued.

  Since when had she become our Lindsay? she wondered. Dorrey had never shared home-baked cookies with her when she was a child, the way they described in novels or showed in movies. Anytime she’d come to the kitchen she had promptly been ordered out.

  “Probably so. Ah, but it’s nice to see Sydney,” Mrs. Dreyfus said. “So beautiful, so perfect, and she’s in all the magazines, so lovely she is.”

  “So is our Lindsay,” Dorrey said.

  “Yes, I know, and she’s a sweet girl. But Sydney is different, you know that.”

  “Sometimes different as in plain old nasty,” Dorrey said.

  Lindsay came into the kitchen. It wasn’t that she was necessarily averse to eavesdropping, she was simply afraid if she continued to listen, she’d hate what she heard.

  “Hi,” she said, dredging up a smile. “I left the table because it’s a sniper’s paradise in there. Is there something I can eat for supper?”

  She became the young lady of the house, deferred to, seated at the butcher-block table, served, not allowed to do anything except lift her fork. No, she thought as she ate a goodly portion of Waldorf salad, she was no longer our Lindsay. She was one of them.

  “You would like New York, Mrs. Dreyfus,” Lindsay said, biting into one of Dorrey’s homemade rolls that were better than anything Lindsay had ever had at home.

  “Ha! That place of crime and sin? Ha!”

  Lindsay grinned. “You can avoid crime if you’re careful, and sin is fun.”

  “Miss Lindsay, don’t talk like that. You’re not sophisticated like Miss Sydney.”

  “No, that’s true.”

  Once back in her bedroom, Lindsay called Taylor. He answered on the second ring and she was smiling even before he spoke.

  “Is this that wonderful fiancée of mine who’d better be all right?”

  “Yes, I’m okay.”

  Pause. “You hanging in there, sweetheart? Really?”

  “Yes. My family—they snipe and carp and butcher each other verbally, me included, but you know something? It wasn’t as important this time as it always has been. I’m coming home tomorrow night.”

  “The midnight flight?”

  “Yes. You don’t have to come for me, Taylor,” she said, not meaning it and knowing she didn’t sound like she meant it.

  “Okay, I won’t.”

  She sputtered into the phone. “You jerk!”

  He laughed. “Of course I’ll be there, grinning like a fool at your gate. Now, tell me what’s happening there.”

  She didn’t tell him. She couldn’t.

  After giving her plenty of empty air and encouraging sounds, Taylor gave up. “I had Chinese this evening with Enoch. He loves the apartment, says it’s too high-brow for me, but suits you perfectly. He thought the new Persian rug in the living room showed my good taste. Oh, yeah, I thought my fortune cookie was particularly apt: ‘You are an angel. Beware of those who collect feathers.”’

  She laughed and he grinned into the phone, loving the sound, hearing the tension in her voice lighten. “Enoch and Sheila send their love.”

  They spoke of the weather, of things that weren’t really important to either of them.

  “I have a new case,” Taylor said, so frustrated with the conversation or lack thereof that he was willing to try anything.

  “What is it? Computer or P.I. stuff?”

  “The latter. A man wants me to pin his wife. He’s convinced she staged a robbery of their house, lifting everything valuable, including all her jewelry. It’s weird, but hey, I thrive on weird. Anyway, I meet the lady tomorrow. I understand she’s something of a femme fatale. Her husband also said straight out that she’s got two lovers, not just the requisite one.”

  “Don’t you become number three. Good luck.” There was another long pause; then Lindsay said very quietly, “I really do miss you, Taylor, I really do.”

  “Same here,” he said.

  The following morning Lindsay didn’t go downstairs until it was time to leave for the church.

  She didn’t own a black dress and decided in any case that her grandmother would have hated black. Unfortunately, she had no idea what her mother would have preferred. She wore pure white. She wore three-inch heels.

  For once Sydney didn’t say anything.

  The service was elegant, discreet, and St. Mary’s was crowded. Lindsay’s father did, however, point out the young man who had been her mother’s latest lover. “At least he put in an appearance. Shows respect. I trust the little bastard won’t try for any of her money.”

  A society columnist from the Chronicle, Paula Kettering, came up to Lindsay after the service.

  She said without preamble, “Your grandmother was a wonderful woman, Miss Foxe. I wanted to tell you that. She also believed you had what it took to succeed in anything you chose to do, and you have succeeded. She was very proud of you. And of your half-sister too, of course. As I recall, she said, ‘Sydney, La Principessa, will always land where her mink will soft
en her fall. Lindsay will abide. She’s good at that.’ Last year she consented to an interview with me and that’s what she said. I wanted to tell you that.”

  Lindsay was stunned and pleased. Abide. Yes, that’s what she seemed to be good at. She suddenly pictured her grandmother, very clearly, saying that. To her chagrin, she began to cry. Paula Kettering patted her shoulder. “I didn’t mean to upset you, Miss Foxe, just to tell you—”

  Lindsay got hold of herself and thanked the woman. Finally, aeons later, the family arrived back at the mansion. The only addition to their party was Mr. Grayson Delmartin, Gates Foxe’s lawyer since 1959 when a drunk had run into the beautiful rhododendron bushes in front of the mansion and then sued her. Grayson Delmartin had proved to be a crackerjack, Gates said, forcing the drunk man to pay restitution for the destroyed plants.

  Lindsay was on the point of going upstairs to pack her few things when Mr. Delmartin called after her, “Just a moment, Lindsay. I know you wish to be alone, my dear, but there’s the reading of the will. All family members are required to be present. Please come into the library.”

  Who cared? But she went and seated herself behind her father and Holly and Sydney.

  There were bequests to Mrs. Dreyfus, to Dorrey, and to Lansford, the retired butler. There were bequests to the organizations Gates Foxe had belonged to and helped run over the years. There were charitable foundations, environmental gifts. When the list had finally ended, Mr. Delmartin raised his thin face and removed his glasses. He looked at each of them in turn. He spoke slowly, as if measuring each word, as he probably was, Lindsay thought. “I don’t know if even you, Judge Foxe, know the extent of your mother’s holdings. They were, in a word, vast. She has always had the knack of choosing good financial advisers over the years and has prospered, adding to the fortune left her by her late husband.”

  Royce said in his best unctuous voice, “She was a bright old woman. She was also renowned for her luck. Get to the point, Grayson.”

  Mr. Delmartin didn’t look at all affronted. He put his glasses back on, picked up the thick sheaf of bound papers, and read:

  “‘I leave one million dollars to my son, Royce Chandliss Foxe. I leave one million dollars to my ex-daughter-in-law, Jennifer Foxe. I leave one million dollars to my current daughter-in-law, Holly Foxe. I leave one million dollars to my eldest granddaughter, Sydney Foxe di Contini. I leave five million dollars to my great-granddaughter, Melissa di Contini. Finally, I leave my home, located at 358 Bayberry Street, to my granddaughter, Lindsay Foxe. Also I leave to her, free and clear, the remainder of my holdings, both financial and real, to do with as she pleases. She has kindness, and perhaps in the years to come she will gain wisdom and perspective and understanding of those around her. I hope that her inheritance will aid her in achieving happiness and the security she deserves.”

  There was utter silence, impenetrable and disbelieving. Incredulous silence, silence that was like the eye of a storm. Dark feelings swirled and the silence was thickening, becoming acid and ugly. Then it seemed that everyone spoke at once.

  Holly shot up from her chair, nearly knocking it over, her heavy face mottled with angry color. “But that’s absurd! Giving Lindsay this mansion! That’s impossible, I want to redecorate it!”

  Royce grabbed her arm, pulling her back down. “My wife is perhaps unwise in her choice of words, Delmartin, but nonetheless, what she says is true. Leaving Lindsay anything is absurd. Leaving me, her only son, her heir, a paltry million dollars? Explain, now.”

  Grayson Delmartin went through his ritual of removing his glasses, giving himself time to think before he spoke. “I was Mrs. Foxe’s lawyer, Judge Foxe, not her financial adviser or her family confessor—”

  “Bullshit! You advised her all the bloody time. Are you responsible for this travesty?” He stared a moment toward Lindsay. His eyes darkened—her eyes—the blue deep now, turbulent with anger. “What’s your problem, Delmartin? Do you have a thing for girls who are over six feet tall and naive and stunted?”

  Lindsay rocked back in her chair. She stared at her father, knowing she shouldn’t be surprised at anything he said, but this ruthlessness, this cruelty—

  “Judge Foxe,” Grayson Delmartin said, “I beg you moderate your language and your opinions. Miss Lindsay Foxe is your daughter, not some sort of interloper who had no claim on the family. She is also Gates Foxe’s granddaughter. She is now very wealthy because she is also the sole inheritor of her mother, Jennifer Foxe. Since she is the sole beneficiary, I will cover it with her in private when we have finished with this.”

  “Lunacy!” Holly shrieked. “Sheer wickedness! I won’t have it! That damned old lady, I’ll kill her!”

  “We won’t ever be finished with this,” Royce said. He turned to Sydney. “Well, what do you think? You haven’t said a word. One million, Sydney, just one fucking million dollars. Jesus, and five million to your daughter. I’ll just bet the old bitch tied up that money so you’ll never see a dime of it. Probably Melissa won’t either until she’s twenty-five. What the hell are you going to do?”

  Sydney just smiled gently at her father. She looked like the princess she was—cool, aloof, dignified, well-bred to her Gucci-shod toes. She turned toward her half-sister, her posture, her voice composed, gracious, soft. “Congratulations, Lindsay. It appears that you have quite shown all of us, haven’t you? Grandmother used to speak of waters running deep in some people. I never really understood what she meant until now. In any case, I do commend you for your outstanding manipulations and congratulate you.”

  “I didn’t do anything. I have no deep-running waters, that’s nonsense and you know it, Sydney. There were no manipulations. My God, this is more a surprise to me than to any of you.”

  “Ah, at last some truth out of you, Lindsay,” Royce said. “Excellent.” He rose with swift grace and strode over to stand over her. “Prove your honesty, your sincerity. Sign over your inheritance to me—to your father—to whom it should have gone in the first place. It isn’t right that you take my place in line. You will correct it now.”

  Grayson Delmartin jumped to his feet. “Now, just a moment, Judge Foxe. I highly disapprove of this. You mustn’t try to coerce your daughter, particularly at a time like this. Such intimidation tactics are highly inappropriate and—”

  “Stuff a sock in it!” Holly yelled at him. “Just shut up, damn you, you worthless old sod. Is Lindsay paying you a percentage for this? Did you doctor up this supposed will in her favor?”

  Mr. Delmartin pursed his mouth closed. He gathered the papers together, taking his time, straightening each sheet perfectly, calming himself. He was trembling, which was strange to him, because he’d been in the eye of family will-reading storms before, some much worse in acrimony than this one. But the Foxes were supposed to be different. Money, he thought, money was the very devil. It blackened and tarnished and corrupted. It inflicted wounds that would never heal. He finished his straightening. He turned to Lindsay Foxe, who was sitting like a statue in a straight-backed chair. “Will you please come with me now, Lindsay?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  Royce didn’t step back. His hands were fisted at his sides. His face was pale, his eyes hard and ugly. “You damned little slut, you no-account little bitch! Little, ha! You just stay where you are. I knew you were a hypocrite, a fraud, nothing more than a mealymouthed little thief. Jesus, I can’t believe you’d steal from your own father, steal my birthright. More fool I—” He slapped his palm against his forehead and delivered his blow, his voice low now: “However, blood will tell, won’t it? How could I forget? Didn’t you seduce your own sister’s husband? Didn’t you force her to shoot him because of what you’d done? Didn’t you prove exactly what you were when you were eighteen years old? Jesus, you’re despicable, Lindsay. I disown you.”

  “If you disown her, Judge Foxe, you would no longer be a member of her family and thus she wouldn’t have any obligation, either moral or legal, to lea
ve you a bloody nickel in her will. Were she to die and leave you nothing, you would have no legal grounds to contest it. You would, in short, be a laughingstock.”

  Mr. Delmartin was pleased with his own parting shot. As for Judge Foxe, he looked distinctly displeased with himself and his loss of control. Good, Grayson Delmartin thought as he offered Lindsay his arm. Let the good judge stew on that. Together they left the library. Lindsay was stiff and pale as death, and she stared straight ahead. He led her to the drawing room as a person would another who was blind.

  He sat her in a chair and pulled up another opposite her. He took her hands in his as he spoke. Lindsay pulled hers away, unable to bear a touch that brought her here, to the present, to the incredible present that had left everything destroyed, in tatters. But there was no lessening of the shock. Jennifer Foxe had left her daughter an estate nearing five million dollars, after taxes, and a paid-for penthouse condominium on Russian Hill, valued at another million.

  Lindsay couldn’t take it in. She just sat there, her hands folded in her lap, looking at the painting of her grandfather over the fireplace. Her grandmother had appeared to love this painting. Lindsay could remember her standing here just looking at it, not moving, staring and staring. She’d always wondered what her grandmother was thinking.

  “Do you understand?” Delmartin asked, his voice gentle.

  “Yes, but it makes no sense.” She turned and gave him a grave smile. “It really makes no difference, though, does it? To anything. My father has always disliked me. I just didn’t realize how much he hated me, how much contempt he felt for me until today. Even if Grandmother had left me a million dollars like everyone else, even if she had left him the bulk of everything, he still would have yelled and screamed at me and hated me.”

  “Probably,” Grayson said, his voice cool and matter-of-fact. “I have heard from financial rumblings that your father needs a sturdy influx of money. It seems he doesn’t have your grandmother’s cunning.”