Thurston House (1983)

by Steel, Danielle

  I wish I could. Apparently we have to go to court first.

  What a dreadful ordeal for you, poor child. At forty-seven, Sabrina was no child, but she was touched by Amelia's words. The woman ought to be shot. Actually, Jeremiah should have done that long ago, it would have made things a great deal simpler for you now.

  It would that. Sabrina smiled, grateful that there had been someone to call. I'll tell you how it turns out.

  You do that. And how is Andr+!, by the way? I take it you two are rebuilding the world and plan to fill it with drunks.

  One of these days. Sabrina laughed at Amelia's description of their plans. Are you all right?

  Fine. Except for this throat. I seem determined to live forever, in spite of myself.

  Good. We need you around.

  Well, you don't need her. And you never did. So throw her out as soon as you can.

  Amen. Sabrina thanked her and hung up and turned to Andr+! again. There was absolutely nothing they could do until they went to court, and with that Camille floated through the room in a white chiffon dress, with diamond earrings Sabrina suspected weren't real. She looked at Andr+! in despair. What am I going to do? The prospect of living with her until they went to court almost drove her mad, and when Jon returned the next day, things did not improve. He greeted Camille like his long-lost friend and beloved grandmother, an expected guest, and Sabrina went straight to his room and closed the door. She stood facing him as he sat on the bed and he didn't look as though he were in the mood to talk, but she wasn't offering a choice.

  I want to talk to you, Jon.

  What about? But he was playing with her. He knew, and it amused him to think of how angry she would be. What the hell? Why not? She never gave him what he wanted anymore, the Grand Tour, the car he had been begging for for three years. She just cried poor all the time, and whined about Thurston House. Well, now Grandmother would take it off her hands, and she could go live in Napa with the French farmer she was so busy planting grapes with. And he and his grandmother could live in splendor at Thurston House. And Grandmother had promised him a car, once she got things worked out. That was definitely his style, and he could hardly wait. It was going to be a very amusing senior year, with a car of his own, if they worked things out soon enough, and the Grand Tour at the end, a graduation present, Grandmother had said, and after that he was moving to New York to find a job so he didn't care who lived in the house anyway. He probably never would again, not for any serious length of time. He thought San Francisco a pathetic, provincial little town. He was ready for New York after three years in Cambridge, although they were certainly nice to him everywhere ' Boston ' Atlanta ' Philadelphia ' Washington' .

  I want an explanation from you. His mind was torn back from pleasanter thoughts by his mother glaring down at him. She was almost shaking with rage, and there would be no avoiding her. But she couldn't do anything to him now. Grandmother was already in the house, and she had gotten in all by herself. Originally, she had wanted Jon to let her in while Sabrina was away, but apparently he had refused to go that far, and she had agreed to handle it herself. He knew she could. She was even tougher than Sabrina was, but somehow she seemed to have more in common with Jon, they thought the same way, as Sabrina feared now, and that was something else she wanted to discuss with him. Just exactly what role did you play in this? Her eyes were relentless as they bored through him now.

  What do you mean?

  Don't play games with me. She tells me she's known you for almost three years. Why didn't you ever say anything to me?

  I thought you'd be upset. But he averted his eyes and without warning, she reached out and slapped his face.

  Don't lie to me!

  He looked up at her, shocked. She had never looked at him that way before. Her eyes hurt more than her hand, but she had never felt more betrayed, and the more she had thought about it, the angrier she got. Dammit, what difference does it make who I know! Do I have to tell you everything I do?

  She's my mother, Jon, and you met her three years ago. Why did you help her do this?

  I did no such thing, and then as he looked at her he shrugged, maybe she has as much right to this house as you do. She says she was married to Grandfather when he died.

  You could have warned me of that, couldn't you? He didn't answer her, and her voice rose again. Couldn't you? And then, You know what the worst thing about all this is, Jon? It's what you did to me. She's never been a mother to me, but you are my son, and you not only let this happen, you helped her set it up. How does that make you feel about yourself?

  He looked right into her eyes, belligerent and hostile to the end, and something inside her began to die as she looked at him. I feel fine.

  Then I feel sorry for you.

  I don't need anything from you. He said it as Sabrina left the room. She couldn't control herself anymore, and she couldn't bear what she was seeing in him. He was so much like Camille, and for so many years she had wondered about him. He was different from her father, from his own, from herself, but now suddenly she had traced the genes back to their source inadvertently. He was exactly like Camille, and evil to the core. He had no loyalty to Sabrina at all, after all she had done for him. Somewhere, sometime, something had gotten twisted in him and it had never gotten straightened out again, and it was almost too late now. Particularly if Camille stuck around to bring out the worst in him. In the next few days, she watched the two of them collaborate and conspire, whisper and go out. Sabrina felt totally abandoned by her son. The two of them had ganged up on her, and she had other things to do too. But she couldn't concentrate on anything now, and she didn't dare leave the house and go to Napa to see Andr+! and their land. She was afraid that if she left, they would do something even worse to her, like pillage the house, or steal her things, or maybe even change the locks and not let her back in.

  You can't sit there terrified for the next few months. Andr+! was genuinely worried about her.

  Do you think it'll take that long?

  It could. You know what the lawyer said.

  I think I'll go mad before that.

  Not until you come up here and make some decisions about the wines. And then he had an idea. I'll tell you what. I'll send Antoine down, and he can stay there at the house and keep an eye on things while you come up here, and when you go back, he'll come back up here. It was an elaborate system, but it worked. And for the next two months that was exactly what they did. And by then her attorney was back, and he had the matter in hand. He also agreed that there was very little they could do. It would have to go to court, and that might take another two months. In the meantime, Jon had to go back to school, and when he did, the chill between him and his mother hadn't warmed. He went out to dinner with Camille the night before he left, and Sabrina went out to dinner with Andr+! and Antoine. The bitterness between them was almost irreparable now, and she almost felt sometimes as though she had lost her son. And in a sense she had, to Camille. So far, Camille had won nothing else, but that part of the battle had been won. She was promising Jon the moon, once they got Sabrina out of the house. And through it all, she still felt as though he were wreaking vengeance on her because his father had died, and because she had worked at the mines. He would never forgive her for those things, and now he was going to make her pay for the rest of her life. She said as much to Andr+! one day as they were walking through the vines.

  I must have failed him terribly. She sighed. If his father had lived, I wouldn't have gone back to work of course. And I didn't work full time, but I think he wanted more than I gave.

  Maybe he's one of those people who would have always wanted more than you had to give. You can't do anything about that.

  I'd like to save him from Camille now. He doesn't see her for what she is yet, but he will, and when he does, he'll be badly disillusioned.

  Andri didn't think that was such a bad thing, and he thought Jon deserved it for his perfidy. He was a rotten kid. And Andr+! hadn't liked him from th
e first, but he would never tell Sabrina that. He was the only one she had, and despite her pain, she still loved him after all. He was her son. But she got comfort now from Antoine too. Knowing what she was going through, he was particularly kind to her, and thoughtful, and he brought her flowers and baskets of fruit, and little thoughtful gifts from time to time. They meant a great deal to her and she always mentioned it to Andr+!, telling him what a fine boy he had. He was proud of him, and she envied them the closeness they shared. She hoped that in a few years, when Jon was the same age as Antoine, he would have matured as much and grown closer to her, but some deep inner part of her told her that would not be the case, and she turned her mind to other things, the vineyards she was building with Andr+!, and the case she was going to bring against Camille. She knew the date was coming close, and she appeared unmoved by it, she played her cards tight and well, and only a week before the court date, she knocked on the door to Sabrina's suite. It was December ninth, and they were going to court on December sixteenth.

  Yes? Sabrina stood in her robe and bare feet, still unable to believe that Camille had inflicted herself on her. She had been there for more than five months now, and it was like a nightmare without end, a terrible dream from which Sabrina never seemed to awaken. Camille was always there, wandering around the house with a possessive air, putting on her cheap clothes and ratty furs and putting on the dog around town. Sabrina had heard rumors of it, and now and then some valuable object would disappear from the house and Camille would insist she had had nothing to do with it, but Sabrina knew otherwise. She couldn't seem to stop her though and she couldn't watch her all the time, and as Sabrina had predicted to Andr+!, she had attempted to reclaim her jewels, but Sabrina wouldn't hear of it. By a sheer quirk of Fate, she had to tolerate the woman in her house, but that was all she would do. And as the bills began to pour in, incurred by Camille and her son, she took a stand and refused to pay them. They seemed to be trying to do everything they could to bankrupt her, and she would have been if she had tried to pay the bills for the mountain of things they charged to her. But Sabrina let Camille's bills pile up without touching the stack, and she mailed Jon's to him at school. He was twenty-one years old now, and as she told him, if he wanted to live that way, he would have to take responsibility for it himself. But his grandmother had assured him, of course, that she would take care of everything when she got Sabrina out of the house, and she told him that she had every confidence that she would. So he let his bills pile up too. There were hundreds of them in his desk, all unpaid. He would give them to Grandmother when he saw her again, as he used to give them to Sabrina when he went home. But those days were gone now, as his mother constantly said. Thank God, he didn't have to listen to her very often, she was three thousand miles away. But Camille and Sabrina were only three feet apart when Sabrina opened her door to her. What do you want?

  I thought we might talk. She always sounded very Southern when she had a plan in mind. And the only thing Sabrina really hated about her was that for the rest of her life she would think of that voice, and see the face and worry that in some way she might look or talk or think or act like her ' even a single gesture in common would have been repulsive, and it was still worse to realize how much like her Jon was. But none of what she felt showed in her eyes now.

  Talk about what? I have nothing to say to you. Wouldn't you rather talk than go to court? Not necessarily. Sabrina was hardened now, and she was calling her bluff. Why not? Her lawyer said that the more he looked at it, the less he thought Camille had a case. Jeremiah's will had been written in such a way that he had excluded her without actually saying her name, any persons I might have been married to' . Sabrina remembered thinking that strange at the time of his death, but she had been so upset at the time that she hadn't dwelled on it. And now it had to be fought out in court, no matter how good her chances were. Unless Camille backed down and left, but that seemed unlikely after she'd dug her heels in for so long. I don't mind going to court.

  Camille looked at her and smiled. I don't want to take your house away, child. Sabrina wanted to slap her face or beat her head into the ground. After almost six months of torturing her, invading her life, stealing her son, now she didn't want to take her house away from her? And she dared to call her child.

  I'm verging on fifty years old, and I'm not your child, and never was. I have nothing to do with you. You make me sick. And if I had my way, you'd be thrown out of here on your ass tonight.

  Til go this week her voice was an insidious whisper if you pay my price. Without saying a word to her, Sabrina slammed her bedroom door in her face and locked it.

  For Andr+! it was agonizing watching Sabrina go through what she had to for six months and there was nothing he could do to help. He went to court with her on December sixteenth and for once Camille actually looked pale and frightened. She had gone too far, and she knew it as she attempted to wheedle her way around the judge, who was shocked by the tale, and her brazen act of moving into the house, and tormenting Sabrina for so long, after abandoning her as a child. A deposition had been taken from Amelia in New York. Despite her age, her memory was excellent, and she had been more than articulate about the events of some forty-six years before. Camille almost shook as she looked around the court. She was alone, and she was a fool. She had never meant for it to go this far. She thought Sabrina would buy her off, and now they were talking about having her pay damages and back rent for the past six months. The matter of her extensive bills was brought up, and those she had encouraged Jonathan to incur, and when it was all over, she was grateful to receive only a sound scolding from the judge. He had actually threatened to put her in jail, and he gave her exactly one hour, with a sheriffs deputy standing by, to pack and be out of Thurston House.

  Sabrina couldn't believe the nightmare had come to an end, and as Camille walked down the stairs for the last time, Sabrina looked at her beneath the magnificent dome, and there was no longer hatred in her eyes. There was nothing at all. She had lost too much in the last six months to feel anything for Camille now. She had lost her peace of mind, and more importantly, she had lost her son to her.

  I thought when it was all over, we might be friends. Camille spoke to her in a nervous, hesitant voice. She had played her hand too far and gotten badly burned. And now she had to go back to Atlanta with her tail between her legs, to stay with young Hubert again, and she hadn't been kind to him either when she left Atlanta. She hadn't thought she would need him anymore, and as it turned out, she had been mistaken.

  Sabrina spoke in a clear strong voice as the deputy stood by. I don't ever want to see or hear from you again, and if I do, I'll call the police and report it to the court. Is that clear? Camille nodded silently. And stay away from my son. But that battle she lost, for when she called Jon the next day, after regaining her wits and her calm, he told her he wasn't coming home for Christmas after all. He had been planning to take the train west on the eighteenth. He was going to Atlanta instead, and his voice was filled with accusation.

  I talked to Grandmother yesterday. She says you bought off the judge. Sabrina was stunned and for the first time since the judge had ordered Camille out of her house, she felt tears on her cheeks. Was it possible that Jon would never understand, that he would hate her always, was he that much like his grandmother?

  Jon, I did no such thing. She was fighting to stay calm. I don't even think one could. The judge was a decent man and he saw her for what she was.

  She's an old woman looking for a place to live, and God only knows where she'll go now.

  Where was she before?

  Living on people's charity from hand to mouth. She's going to have to move in with her nephew again.

  I can't help that.

  And you don't care.

  No, I don't. She tried to take this house away, Jon! But he refused to understand. He hung up calling her a bitch, and that night she lay alone in her bed, in the house that was finally hers again, but she knew that she hadn'
t won after all. Camille Beauchamp Thurston had. She had won Jon away from Sabrina.

  IT would have been a lonely Christmas for her that year, without Jon, if it hadn't been for Antoine and Andr+!. They refused to let it be lonely for her. They arrived on the doorstep of Thurston House, with a Christmas tree, and eggnog Antoine had made, and they teased her and amused her and cajoled her, and they ail went to midnight mass together and sang carols as the tears rolled down Sabrina's cheeks, and Andr+! put an arm around her shoulders and smiled at her. They were a good threesome and she was grateful to them. Without them she would have sat alone in the house and cried at the miseries Camille had brought, but with the two Frenchmen around, it was impossible to remain depressed, and by Christmas day, she was in good spirits again, and Antoine went back to Napa to rejoin the men. But Andr+! stayed on with her, so that they could go to the bank together the next day. They wanted to take out another loan for some equipment they would need, but things were going well for them. Andr+! was brilliant at running the vineyards for her, and they had cleared all of the land by then.

  Even my jungle looks wonderful now, she teased, I hardly recognize it.

  Wait till you taste our wine! But instead he had brought her a bottle of Moet & Chandon and they sat and looked at the Christmas tree after Antoine left, and Andr+! glanced at her admiringly. She had been through so much that year, and Amelia had been right long ago, she was made of remarkable stuff, Sabrina was. She was extraordinary, gentle and kind and stronger than any woman he knew. Even more so than Amelia perhaps, and Sabrina would have been stunned to hear him say that. Amelia was what she would have wanted her mother to be like. But she couldn't pretend anymore. She knew exactly what her mother was. A bitch and a whore, and a woman who had tried to take everything from her dishonestly. She had even stolen a small painting in her suitcase when she left, and Sabrina was grateful to be rid of her. She sat staring at the tree, thinking of that.