“It’s a stunningly beautiful work of art!” he said with impressed awe. I couldn’t help but think of the grandmother, and how she’d cruelly rejected our tedious and hopeful gesture to win her friendship. “Thank you very much, Catherine, for thinking so much of me. I’m going to hang it in my office where all my patients can see it.”
Tears flooded my eyes, smeared my mascara as I furtively tried to blot them away before he realized it wasn’t just the candlelight making me this beautiful, but three hours of preparation. He didn’t notice the tears or my handkerchief that came from the cleavage of my low-cut gown. He was still admiring the small stitches I’d so carefully made. He put the gift aside, caught my glance with his own shining eyes and stood to help me up. “It’s too beautiful a night to go to bed,” he said as he glanced at his watch. “I’ve got a yearning to walk in the garden by moonlight. Do you ever have yearnings like that?”
Yearnings? I was made of yearnings, half of them adolescent and too fanciful to ever come true. Yet as I strolled by his side through the magic of his Japanese garden and over the little red-lacquered footbridge, and as we ascended marble steps and walked on hand in hand, I felt we’d both entered a magical never-never land. It was the marble statues, of course, life-size marble statues standing in their cold and perfect nudity.
The breezes were blowing the Spanish moss, and Paul had to duck to escape it, while I could stand straight and smile because having height did cause a few problems I could escape. “You’re laughing at me, Cath-er-ine,” he said, just as Chris used to tease, and separate my name into slow and distinct syllables. My lady, Cath-er-ine.
I ran on ahead and down the marble steps to the center where Rodin’s The Kiss dominated the garden. Everything seemed silvery bluish and unreal, and the moon was big and bright, full and smiling, with long dark clouds streaking its face and making it seem sinister one moment and gay the next. I sighed, for it was like that strange night that put Chris and me up on the roof of Foxworth Hall, both of us fearful we’d roast over the eternal fires of hell.
“It’s a pity you are here with me and not with that beautiful boy you dance with,” said Paul, yanking me back from thoughts of yesterday.
“Julian?” I asked in surprise. “He’s in New York this week—but I suspect he’ll be back again next week.”
“Oh,” he said. “Then next week will belong to him, and not me.”
“That all depends. . . .”
“On what?”
“Sometimes I want him and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes he seems just a boy and I want a man. Then again, sometimes he’s very sophisticated and that impresses me. And when I dance with him I fall madly in love with the prince he’s supposed to be. He looks so splendid in those costumes.”
“Yeah,” he said, “I’ve noticed that myself.”
“His hair is jet black, while yours is sort of brownish smoky black.”
“I suppose jet black is more romantic than brownish smoky black?” he teased.
“That all depends.”
“Catherine, you are female through and through—stop giving me enigmatic answers.”
“I’m not enigmatic, I’m just telling you love isn’t enough, nor romance. I want skills to see me through life so I’ll never have to lock away my children to inherit a fortune I didn’t earn. I want to know how to earn a buck and see us through, even if we don’t have a man to lean on and support us.”
“Catherine, Catherine,” he said softly, taking both my hands in his and holding them tight. “How hurt you’ve been by your mother. You sound so adult, so hard. Don’t let bitter memories deprive you of one of your greatest assets—your soft, loving ways. A man likes to take care of the woman he loves and his children. A man likes to be leaned on, looked up to, respected. An aggressive, domineering woman is one of God’s most fearsome creatures.”
I yanked free of him and ran on to the swing and threw myself down on the seat. I pushed myself high, higher, fast, faster, flying so high it took me back to the attic and the swings there when the nights were long and stuffy. Now here I was, free, on the outside and swinging crazily to put myself back into the attic! It was seeing Momma and her husband again that was making me desperate, making me want what should be put off until I was older.
I flew so high, so wild, so abandoned my skirts fanned up into my face and made me blind. Dizzy, I suddenly fell to the ground! Paul came running to my side, falling down on his knees to lift me up in his arms. “Are you hurt?” he asked, and kissed me before I could answer. No, not hurt. I was a dancer who knew how to fall. He started murmuring the love words I needed to hear between his kisses that came slower and lasted longer, and the look in his eyes made me fill with a drunkenness far headier and far more sparkling than any imported French champagne.
My lips parted beneath his prolonged kiss. I gasped because his tongue touched mine. His kisses came hot, soft, moist on my eyelids, my cheeks, my chin, neck, shoulders, cleavage as his hands endlessly roamed and sought all my most intimate places.
“Catherine,” he gasped, pulling away and gazing down at me with his eyes on fire, “you’re only a child. We can’t let this happen. I swore I’d never let this happen, not with you.” Useless words that I snuffed out by encircling his neck with my arms. My fingers sank into the thickness of his dark hair as I murmured huskily, “I wanted to give you a shiny silver Cadillac for your birthday, but I didn’t have enough money. So I thought I’d give you second best—me.”
He moaned softly. “I can’t let you do this—you don’t owe me.” I laughed and kissed him, shamelessly kissed him long and deep.
“Paul, it’s you who owes me! You’ve given me too many long, desiring looks to tell me you don’t want me now. If you say that you’re lying. You think of me as a child. But I grew up a long time ago. Don’t love me, I don’t care. For I love you and that’s enough. I know you’ll love me the way I want to be loved, because even though you won’t admit it, you do love me and want me.”
The moon lit up his eyes and made them shine. Even as he said, “No, you’re a fool to think it will work,” his eyes were speaking differently.
To my way of thinking, his very restraint proved exactly how very much he did love me. If he had loved me less he would have eagerly taken long ago what I wouldn’t have denied. So when he made a move to rise, to leave me and have done with temptation, I took his hand and put it where it would pleasure me most. He groaned. And groaned even louder when I put my hand where it would pleasure him most. Shameless what I did, I knew it. I shut off my thoughts of what Chris would think, of how the grandmother would consider me a scarlet harlot. Oh, was it fortunate or just the opposite that that book in Momma’s nightstand drawer had shown me well what to do to pleasure a man and how to respond?
I thought he would take me there on the grass under the stars, but he picked me up and carried me back into the house. Up the back stairs he stole quietly. Neither of us spoke though my lips traveled over his neck and face. Far off, in the room to the rear of the kitchen, I could hear Henny’s TV as she listened to a late-night talkshow.
On his bed he laid me down and with his eyes alone he began his lovemaking, and in his eyes I drowned, and things grew blurry as my emotions swelled higher like a tidal wave engulfing both of us. Skin to skin we pressed, just holding close at first and thrilling in the exaltation of sharing what the other had to give. With each touch of his lips, of his hands I was shot through with electrifying sensations, until at last I was wild to have him enter me, no longer tender, but fervent with his own fierce, demanding need to reach the same heights I was seeking.
“Catherine! Hurry, hurry, come!”
What was he talking about? I was there beneath him, doing what I could. Come where? He was slippery and wet with sweat. My legs were raised and clutched about his waist and I could feel the terrible effort of his restraint as he kept telling me to come, come, come! Then he groaned and gave up.
Hot juices spurted forth to warm up my insid
es pleasantly five or six times, and then it was over, all over, and he was pulling out. And I hadn’t reached any mountain high, or heard bells ringing, or felt myself exploding—not as he had. It was all over his face, relaxed and at peace now, vaguely smeared with joy. How easy for men, I thought, while I still wanted more. There I was on the verge of Fourth-of-July fireworks and it was all over. All over but for his sleepy hands that roamed over my body, exploring all hills and crevices before he fell asleep. Now his heavy leg was thrown over mine. I was left staring up at the ceiling with tears in my eyes. Good-bye, Christopher Doll—now you are set free.
* * *
Sunlight through the window wakened me early. Paul was propped up on an elbow gazing dreamily down at me. “You are so beautiful, so young, so desirable. You aren’t sorry, are you? I hope you don’t wish now you had done it differently?”
I snuggled closer against his bare skin. “Explain one thing, please. Why did you keep asking me to come?” He roared with laughter.
“Catherine, my love,” he finally managed. “I nearly killed myself trying to hold back until you could climax. And now you lie there with those big innocent blue eyes and ask what I meant! I thought those dancing playmates of yours had explained everything to you. Don’t tell me there is one subject you haven’t read about in a book!”
“Well, there was a book I found in Momma’s night table drawer. . . . But I just looked at the photographs. I never read the text, though Chris did, but then he stole more often to her bedroom suite than I did.”
He cleared his throat. “I could tell you what I meant by what I said, but demonstrating would be more fun. Really, you don’t have the least idea?”
“Yes,” I said defensively, “of course I do. I’m supposed to feel stunned by lightning bolts so I stiffen out and go unconscious and then I’m split wide apart into atoms that float around in space and then gather together and sizzle me with tingles so I can float back to reality with dream-stars in my eyes—like you had.”
“Catherine, don’t make me love you too much.” He sounded serious, as if I’d hurt him if he did.
“I’ll try to love you the way you want.”
“I’ll shave first,” he said, throwing back the covers and making ready to get up.
I reached to pull him back. “I like the way you look now, so dark and dangerous.”
Eagerly I surrendered to all Paul’s desires. We developed delicate ways of keeping our trysts secret from Henny. On Henny’s day off I washed the bed linens that were duplicates of the ones soiled that I hid away until they could be washed. Carrie could have been in another world she was so unobservant. But when Chris was home we had to be more discreet and not even look at each other, lest we betray ourselves. I felt strange with Chris now, like I’d betrayed him.
I didn’t know how long the rapture between Paul and me would last. I longed for passion undying, for ecstasy everlasting. Yet my suspicious self guessed nothing as glorious as what Paul and I had could go on indefinitely. He would soon tire of me, a child whose mental capacities couldn’t compete with his, and he’d go back to his old ways—maybe with Thelma Murkel. Maybe Thelma Murkel had gone with him to that medical convention, though I was wise enough not to question him ever about what he did when I wasn’t with him. I wanted to give him everything Julia had denied, and give gladly with no recriminations when we parted.
But in the moment of our flaming obsession with each other I felt so large, so generous, and I gloated in our selfless abandonment. And I think the grandmother with her talk of evil and sin had made it ten times more exciting because it was so very, very wicked.
And then again I’d flounder, not wanting Chris to think I was wicked. Oh, it mattered so much to me what Chris would think. Please, God, let Chris know why I’m doing this. And I do love Paul, I do!
After Thanksgiving Chris still had a few days of vacation, and while we were at the dinner table with Henny hovering nearby, Paul asked all of us what we wanted for Christmas. This would be our third Christmas with Paul. In late January I’d be graduating from high school. I didn’t have much time to go, for my next step, I hoped, would be New York.
I spoke up and told Paul what I wanted for Christmas. I wanted to go to Foxworth Hall. Chris’s eyes widened and Carrie began to cry. “No!” said Chris firmly. “We will not open healed wounds!”
“My wounds are not healed!” I stated just as firmly. “They will never be healed until justice is done!”
Foxworth Hall, from the Outside
The minute the words left my mouth he shouted, “No! Why can’t you let bygones be bygones?”
“Because I am not like you, Christopher! You like to pretend that Cory didn’t die of arsenic poisoning, but of pneumonia, because you feel more comfortable with that! Yet you were the one who convinced me she was the one who did it! So why can’t we go up there and see for ourselves if any hospital has a record of Cory’s death?”
“Cory could have died of pneumonia. He had all the symptoms.” How lamely he said that, knowing full well he was protecting her.
“Now wait a minute,” said Paul who had kept quiet, and spoke only when he saw the fire blazing from my eyes. “If Cathy feels she must do this thing, why not, Chris? Though if your mother admitted Cory to a hospital under a false name it won’t be easy to check up.”
“She had a fake name put on his tombstone too,” said Chris, giving me a long, hateful look. Paul gave that some thought, wondering aloud how we could find a grave when we didn’t know the name. I believed I had all the answers. If she registered Cory in a hospital for treatment under a certain name, then naturally she’d use the same name when he was buried. “And Paul since you’re a doctor you can gain entry to all the hospital records, right?”
“You really want to do this?” he asked. “It’s sure to bring back a lot of unhappy memories and, like Chris just said, open up healed wounds.”
“My wounds are not healed, and will never be healed! I want to put flowers on Cory’s grave. I think it will comfort Carrie to know where he’s buried, then we can visit him from time to time. Chris, you don’t have to go if you are so dead set against it!”
What I wanted Paul tried to deliver, despite Chris’s opposition. Chris did travel with us to Charlottesville, riding in the back seat with Carrie. Paul went inside several hospitals and charmed the nurses into giving him the records he wanted. He looked and I looked while Carrie and Chris stayed outside. Not one eight-year-old boy had died of pneumonia two years ago in late October! Not only that, the cemeteries didn’t have a record of a child his age being buried! Still stubbornly determined, I had to trek through all the cemeteries, feeling Momma might have lied and put Dollanganger on his headstone after all. Carrie cried, for Cory was supposed to be in heaven, not in the ground lightly frosted with a recent snowfall.
Fruitless, time-consuming, unrewarding waste! As far as the world was concerned, no male child of eight years had died in the months of October and November 1960! Chris insisted we go back to Paul’s. He tried to persuade me that I didn’t really want to see Foxworth Hall.
I whirled to glare at Chris. “I do want to go there! We do have time! Why come this far and turn back without seeing that house? At least once in the daylight, on the outside—why not?”
It was Paul who reasoned with Chris by telling him I needed to see the house. “And to be honest, Chris, I’d like to see it myself.”
Brooding sullenly in the back seat beside Carrie, Chris relented. Carrie cried as Paul headed his car toward the climbing mountain roads that Momma and her husband must have traversed thousands of times. Paul stopped at a gas station to ask directions to Foxworth Hall. Easily we could have guided Paul to Foxworth Hall, if we knew where the train tracks were and could find the mail depot that was a stop-off point.
“Beautiful country,” said Paul as he drove. Eventually we did come upon that grand house that sat all alone on a mountainside. “That’s the one!” I cried, terribly excited. It was huge as a ho
tel, with double wings that jutted out front and back from the long main stem constructed of pink brick with black shutters at all the windows. The black slate roof was so sharply pitched it looked scary—how had we ever dared to walk up there? I counted the eight chimneys, the four sets of dormer windows in the attic.
“Look over there, Paul,” I directed, pointing out the two windows on the northern wing where we had been held prisoners for so long, waiting endlessly for our grandfather to die.
While Paul stared at those two windows, I looked up at the dormer windows of the attic and saw that the fallen slat from one of the black shutters had been replaced. There wasn’t a scorch mark anywhere or signs of a fire. The house hadn’t burned! God hadn’t sent an errant breeze to blow the candle flame until it caught a dangling paper flower on fire. God wasn’t going to punish our mother or the grandmother, not for anything!
All of a sudden Carrie let out a loud howl. “I want Momma!” she screamed. “Cathy, Chris, that’s where we used to live with Cory! Let’s go inside! I want Momma, please let me see my real momma!”
It was frightful the way she cried and pleaded. How could she remember the house? It had been dark the night we arrived, with the twins so sleepy they couldn’t have seen anything. The morning we stole away it was before dawn and we’d left by the back door. What was it that told Carrie this was our prison of yesteryears? Then I knew. It was the houses lower down the street. We were at the end of the cul-de-sac and up much higher. We’d often peeked out the windows of our locked room and gazed down on all the fine houses. Forbidden to look out of the windows—and yet we dared, on occasion.
* * *
What had been accomplished by our long journey? Nothing, nothing at all except more proof that our mother was a liar beyond belief. I mulled it over, day after day, even when I was perched on one of the built-in shower seats as Paul lathered my hair and carefully began to wash it. The long length couldn’t be piled on top and screwed around or I’d never get out the tangles. He did it the way I’d taught him, working the soapy lather from scalp to ends, and when it was over, he’d dry it, brush it free of tangles and all around me it would fall like a silken shawl to cover my nakedness, like Eve must have covered hers.
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 55
