by Webb, Peggy
Hunter devoured her. He commanded. He conquered. The soft carpet of grass received them as he lowered her to the ground. His hands shaped her body, memorizing the curves, exploring her sweet, secret places. She was his Mattie, his summer girl, his jazz, and he was intoxicated.
Mattie gloried in his touch. With her skirt bunched around her waist and her blouse gaping open, she writhed upon the grass. The splendor of Hunter filled her vision. He was dark and vivid and real. He was her passion, her dream, her love. And he was lost to her.
Like a knife to the heart, Victoria intruded. Her gaiety, her beauty, her pretty words, her final treachery, washed over Mattie, and she went slack in Hunter's arms.
He sensed the change immediately. His arms tensed and his jaw clenched as he silently raged against Victoria. The passion ebbed from him as he tenderly cradled Mattie against his chest.
"It's all right, my love," he crooned. "I'm here."
For a while she clung to him, burying her face against his chest. It felt so safe, so good, she almost let go. But Mattie was stubborn, strong-willed, and determined. She pulled herself back and straightened her blouse.
"I won't take your charity. Hunter."
"This not charity. It’s love."
The black stallion, that had been peacefully cropping grass nearby, flared his nostrils and pawed the ground.
Mattie turned to look at the stallion. "Now, see what you've done to the horse."
"Forget the horse. Look at me, Mattie."
She swung her head back around. Her eyes were as shiny as emeralds under the sun, bright with anger and love and fear.
"Don't you see, Hunter? Right now I'm empty. I feel unloved, rejected, betrayed. I can't deal with you and my mother at the same time."
He gazed off across the valley. He knew she felt those things. He knew she wanted to be alone, to work out her problem by herself. But he was afraid. Time and distance had played havoc with their lives once before. He wasn't willing to risk another ten years of loneliness.
With that resolution made, he turned to face her. "I won't let you go, Mattie."
She could tell by the way the amber light burning his black eyes that he meant it. She could tell by the set of his square jaw, the thrust of his shoulders.
Excitement rose in her, hot and bright. It leaped in her heart, spilled through her veins. Victoria was gone. There was nothing now except Hunter.
But just when she would have reached for him, the flame of excitement burned low, and on its heels came despair. Her hatred of her mother was still there. Dreams couldn't be built on hate. It would haunt, distort, destroy.
Helpless rage filled her heart, and tears filled her eyes.
"Your not letting me go isn't love, Hunter. It's captivity." She jumped up, her fists clenched. "I will have no part of it." She turned her back on him and strode to the horse.
Hunter's jaw tightened. She had disappeared into her impenetrable shell again. The cold winds of despair blew against his heart, and he lashed out, as much against the hopelessness as against Mattie.
"Love!" he said. "How can you turn your back on me and talk about love? You don't know a thing about it, Mattie. You're too busy playing ostrich."
She whirled on him. "I am not burying my head in the sand. I see clearly, and what I see makes me sick! I'm being used, Hunter. Used. All my mother wanted was a little girl who would never grow up and make her feel old."
She stalked around the stallion as she talked, waving her fists at the sky.
"And all you want is somebody to satisfy your libido and warm your lonesome bed." She flung herself into the saddle. "If you're going back to the Rameau estate, you'd better climb on."
"And put up with that stiff-necked, stubborn pride all the way back? No, thank you, Mattie. I’ll walk."
She dug her heels into the stallion's flanks, and together they plunged through the forest.
Hunter watched them go. In spite of his anger, he noticed that her seat was firm and her grip on the reins sure. Mattie had always been a good horsewoman. There was no danger that she'd hurt herself.
He unclenched his hands and rammed them into his pockets. God, how he loved her!
With that thought, he started his long walk back to the estate.
o0o
Mattie was still breathless with anger when she arrived at the stables. She flung the reins to the startled groom and ran toward the house. Getting away was uppermost in her mind.
"Jean-Louis," she called as she entered the house.
He came from the library, drink in hand, a smile on his face. He stopped smiling when he saw her. "What happened? You look like the wrath of Zeus."
"I'm leaving, Jean-Louis. I can't stay for the rest of the party."
"But Mattie—"
"There's no use arguing." Her foot was already on the staircase.
"It's him, isn't it?" Jean-Louis asked. "That pirate on the black stallion? Who is he, Mattie?"
"Somebody I used to love." She clutched the newel post. She felt faint. She had to leave before Hunter got back. She couldn't risk seeing him again.
Jean-Louis took her arm. "Let me help you to your room. I’ll have Clara bring you a glass of wine. Then we’ll talk about everything."
"Just send Clara to help me pack, Jean-Louis, and order a car. I want to leave as quickly as possible."
o0o
Mattie didn't know how she got back to her apartment. She remembered nothing of the ride except the great ache in her chest. Her brain felt too big for her head and her arms were heavy. She looked at the unopened bags in the middle of her living room. She didn't even know how long she'd been back, how long she'd been standing there.
She moved slowly through her apartment, touching her furniture, straightening pictures on the wall, seeking assurance from her possessions that she was real.
Her piano gleamed through the evening shadows. She wondered when the night had fallen.
She sought solace in her music. She sat down at the piano and ran her hands lightly over the keyboard. They moved automatically into a melody. Its haunting beauty soothed her soul, restored her spirit. And when it was over, tears streamed down her face.
"Oh, Hunter! How can I let you go?"
Her bright hair fell across the ivories as she lowered her head to her hands. The hopelessness that had imprisoned her poured out in a heartbreaking wail. She cried for lost youth and lost innocence. She cried for lost dreams and lost happiness. She cried for Hunter, for herself, for Victoria. And when the tears had ceased she felt cleansed.
She rose from the piano bench, chin high and purpose lighting her eyes. Her steps carried her into her spare bedroom, the one Victoria and William had always used when they came to visit. She pushed open the door. The room smelled musty, like memories too long untouched.
She flipped on the light switch. The dust covers she had draped over the furniture after her parents had been killed in a car accident looked morbid and out of place. She jerked them off and tossed them into the closet. Then she sat down on the stool in front of the dressing table and picked up the few personal items there that had belonged to her mother—Victoria's gold dresser set, her cut-crystal perfume bottles, her ivory-inlaid powder box. All were the trappings of a vain woman, a woman obsessed with youth and beauty, and all of them felt cold and empty in Mattie's hands.
She opened the dressing-table drawer and pulled out a box of things that had belonged to her father. His favorite book of poetry, Sunset Gun, was on top. She smiled. That her generous and gentle father had loved the sharp, cynical verse of Dorothy Parker had always amused her. Could it be that he had admired the woman's way of cutting through to the truth of a matter?
As Mattie held the volume in her hands she realized that she'd never really known her father. He was such a sweet, easygoing man, always polite, always sitting quietly by, basking in the overshadowing beauty and vitality of his wife.
Had he known Victoria was selfish and vicious? Mattie wondered. Had he known she'd l
oved nobody but herself? How had he coped with it? How had he lived with that terrible knowledge? She delved through William's personal belongings—the pocket knife, the watch on a gold chain, the leather bookmark—until she found what she sought. Her father's diary. She'd never read it, had never wanted to read it until now.
It was locked. She searched the box for a key. Finding none, she took her father's pocket knife and pried open the rusty lock. The brittle pages crackled in protest as she turned to the first entry.
Her hair fell across her cheeks as she bent over the diary. She read the first entries quickly. They were bright, cheerful accounts of his courtship of Victoria and the early years of his marriage. She smiled when she read his account of her birth. The way he told it, he was the first man in the world to have fathered a daughter.
The entries then became skimpy. Months were skipped. A whole year was missing. The tone of the entries changed too. Gone was the cheerfulness, the joy. An occasional burst of happiness would shine through when he wrote about Mattie, but his references to Victoria were brief and strained, more like an appointment calendar than a diary.
Mattie set the book on the dressing table and rubbed her neck. Sitting on the stool had made her tense. At least, that was what she told herself.
She left the diary and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. She lingered over the tea-making as long as she could, measuring just the right amount of sugar, slicing the lemon just so. Then she carried her china teacup back into the spare bedroom.
She walked the floor, sipping her tea and watching the diary as if it might jump off the table and bite her. When she began to feel ridiculous and cowardly, she picked it up and carried it into her sitting room.
She took an inordinate amount of time arranging her teacup on the table beside her, plumping sofa pillows, and wiggling around until she had achieved the exact amount of comfort she desired. Then she opened the diary again.
Quickly she skimmed the next few short entries. Nothing important there. Suddenly she stiffened. William's thin, spidery writing began to fill the pages again. The entries were lengthy and detailed, and the tone was bleak.
Mattie's hands trembled as she read the words her father had written about her mother. I know, the first long entry said. I know about Victoria's men. All these years I told myself they were harmless flirtations, silly amusements of a lively woman. But I saw them today, that new cameraman and Victoria. I went to the studio early. She'd be working late, doing magazine layouts, she'd said. Lies! It was all lies. They were together on the set, arms and legs entangled, lips devouring each other, their cries enough to destroy my soul. I felt an urge to kill. Instead I stepped back into the shadows and watched, hoping it was somebody else, hoping I'd been wrong. I wasn't. It was my wife, my beautiful, vivacious, glorious wife, heart of my heart and soul of my soul. Sick. I walked out the door.
Mattie closed her eyes. She thought she might be ill. She started to fling the diary away, then she made herself continue reading. It was time to face the truth. She wouldn't let Victoria turn her into a shadow, the way she had William.
I guess I've known all these years, William's next entry read. The way my father looks at me sometimes, with sadness and pity. How I hate the pity. He's polite to Victoria, but I see the contempt he tries to hide behind good manners. He doesn't understand. He doesn't know the real woman I love. Victoria is like a little child. She's vain and spoiled and petted, but underneath she's scared. Sometimes when she curls up in my lap, she tells me that she's afraid to grow old. In her world, the world of poverty that I took her away from, old people are shunted off to horrible places and left to die. Sometimes she tells me that her beauty is her salvation. It got her out of the slums and it's all that keeps her out of the gutter. I cringe when she says that. How close she is to the truth! She gets out of my lap and strips off her clothes. Her body is perfection. "Look at me," she says. "Tell me I'm not getting flabby and old. Tell me I could make a living with this body if I had to." She won't believe she has nothing to worry about. She won't see that we're rich. Sometimes she sees the hurt in my face. Then she falls on her knees and puts her head in my lap. "William, you're the only man I’ll ever love. The only one." I believe her. "What would I do without you and Mattie?" she says. "My Mattie. I love you both more than life itself. Don't ever leave me, William." I won't. She does love us. As much as she is capable, she loves Mattie and me. I assure her I won't leave her. Why can't she believe me? Why can't she trust my love?
Mattie laid the open diary on the table and picked up her teacup. The tea was cold. She didn't care. She'd seen the words. Her father would never lie. Her mother had loved her. She set down the cup and picked the diary up again. The next entry was short.
I wish I could fill the great void inside Victoria. I wish I knew how to stop the ache that makes her continue to reach out to other men. But she can't stop. It's a sickness that consumes her. All I can do is forgive, and try to understand, and to keep on loving her, loving my beautiful, flawed Victoria. Sometimes I think my sanity hinges on this truth: We forgive those we love.
That truth shouted out to Mattie. It rose from the silent pages and resounded in the quiet room. It was the answer. It was the key for closing the door on Mattie's past and unlocking the one on her future.
We forgive those we love.
Her father's serenity had been real, for he'd learned the art of forgiveness.
She closed the book and placed it on the table. Just as she'd once forgiven Hunter for what she thought he'd done, she must now forgive her mother. That was much harder. It meant admitting Victoria's guilt, seeing her clay feet.
Mattie jumped up and paced the floor, stopping every now and then to take a sip of cold tea. Tension coiled in her and made the back of her neck ache. She longed to go to her piano. She longed to drown herself in the forgetfulness of music. But determination held her back. Her future was at stake. If she didn't face this truth now, she never would.
The thought frightened her. What if she refused to acknowledge Hunter's love, just as Victoria had refused to acknowledge William's? Would she then truly become like Victoria, loose and amoral?
Mattie lost track of time. The moon trailed across the sky, and the rest of Paris slept in the shrouded darkness of apartments and homes. But in Mattie's apartment the lights stayed on and the teapot stayed warm. She drank fresh tea and paced the floor, thinking, thinking of William's love for Victoria, thinking of forgiveness. And at last the heavy burden was lifted from her heart. Scrunched in the corner of her sofa with yet another cup of tea in her hands, she forgave her mother. She accepted Victoria's flaws, her betrayal, her limited capacity for love.
On the heels of acceptance came the good memories—the time she'd cried because her strawberry ice cream had fallen from the cone onto the sidewalk and Victoria had hired the ice cream vendor to bring his wagon to their house every day for the rest of the summer so she'd never be out of strawberry ice cream, the champagne party Victoria had given in celebration of her first concert, the real pride she'd taken in Mattie's talent.
The teacup rattled against the saucer as Mattie set it on the table. Her head slumped back onto the sofa cushions and she slept.
Mattie squinted against the bright light pouring into the room. Her head ached, her back felt stiff, and her tongue was dry. She decided twenty-eight was too old. She lay on the sofa, glaring at the morning light and wishing the day would go away. Then her gaze fell on the diary. Energy surged through her, and she decided the day was wonderful after all. She smiled at the sun, she smiled at the diary, and she even smiled about her headache.
Mattie moved with unusual haste for someone who hated mornings. She had to call Hunter. Halfway across the room, she stopped. What would she say to him?
I've forgiven my mother? I've finally made peace with the past? That sounded so trite. How could words make up for all the hurt?
She didn't even know where he was. She'd left him stranded in the woods on Jean-Louis's es
tate. For all she knew, he'd gone back to Dallas. And she wouldn't have blamed him if he had. Heaven knows, she'd been abominable.
She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. Indecision and the possibility of losing Hunter almost overwhelmed her. As always when she was troubled, she sought solace in her music. Her hands touched the keyboard, tentatively at first and then with increasing confidence. The music soothed her soul, restored her spirit.
Finally, she knew what she must do. No mere phone calls for her. She and Hunter had always done things on a grand scale. It was only fitting that they should begin a lifetime together in the same grand style.
She rose from the piano and made a few discreet phone calls. She felt like bending down and kissing the ground when she discovered that Hunter was still in Paris. Smiling, she put the rest of her plan into action.
o0o
The invitation was delivered to Hunter on a silver tray.
When he had first heard the knock on his hotel door, he'd been tempted to roll over in bed and ignore it. But some sixth sense had told him to answer the door. Now he was glad he had. He wouldn't have missed this show for anything in the world. The messenger boy looked like someone straight out of King Arthur's court. Hunter decided he must be hot as hell in all that armor.
He opened the gilt-edged envelope. One eyebrow cocked upward as he read the invitation. He was to be the guest of honor at a Mattie Houston concert, was he? Was it to be her finale? Her way of saying goodbye? His jaw clenched at the thought. Not if he could prevent it, he decided.
The messenger boy interrupted his thoughts. "I'm to bring back a reply, sir."
"Tell the lady ..." Hunter paused, smiling. Such an elaborate invitation deserved an elaborate reply. He crossed the room and rummaged around in his suitcase until he found what he wanted—a teddy bear. Hastily he scribbled a note and tied it to the ribbon around the bear's neck.
"Don't tell the lady anything. Give her this."
