“Good riddance to rubbish,” he said indifferently.
Standing, I threw him a look of pity. “Before you condemn Cindy so harshly, Bart, think about yourself. Has she done any worse than you have?”
He began to use his computer without replying.
I slammed the door behind me.
* * *
Three days later I was helping Cindy finish her packing. We’d been shopping, so she had more than enough casual clothes, six pairs of new shoes, and two new swimsuits. She kissed Jory good-bye, then lingered with the twins cuddled in her arms. “Dear little babies,” she crooned, “I’ll be back. I’ll sneak in and out and won’t let Bart even see me. Jory, you should get away from here, too. Momma, you and Daddy go with him.” Reluctantly she put the twins back in their play pen and came to hug and kiss me. I was already crying. I was losing my daughter. I knew from the way she looked at me that nothing between us would ever be quite the same again.
Still she came to me and hugged me. “Daddy’s going to drive me to the airport,” she said as she bowed her head on my shoulder. “You can come too, if you don’t cry and feel sorry for me, because I’m happier than any lark to be free of this damned house. And take me seriously for once—get Jory and yourselves free of this house. It’s an evil house, and now I hate its spirit just as much as once I loved its beauty.”
We drove to the airport without Cindy bidding Bart or Joel farewell.
Without another word to me, her remote expression told me everything. She was warmer with Chris, kissing him goodbye. She only waved to me as she raced toward her departure gate. “Don’t hang around and wait for my plane to take off. I’m boarding it gladly.”
“You will write?” Chris asked.
“Naturally, when I can find time.”
“Cindy,” I called despite myself, wanting to protect her again, “write at least once a week. We care about what happens to you. We’ll be here to do what we can when you need us. And sooner or later, Bart will find what he’s looking for. He’ll change. I’ll see to it that he changes. I’ll do anything I have to so we can be a family again.”
“He won’t find his soul, Momma,” she called back coolly, backing away even farther. “He was born without one.”
Before her plane left the ground, my tears stopped flowing and my determination hardened into concrete. Indeed, before I died, I was going to see my family united, made whole and healthy—if it took the rest of my life.
Chris made attempts to pull me out of my depression as he drove me back to what had to be called “home.” “How’s the nurse making out?”
My concern for Cindy had kept me so involved that I’d paid little attention to the beautiful, dark-haired nurse Chris had recently hired to live in and help with the twins and Jory. She’d been in the house a few days and I’d hardly said more than six words to her.
“What does Jory think of Toni?” he asked. “I took considerable pains looking for just the right one. In my opinion, she’s a real find.”
“I don’t think he’s even looked at her, Chris. He stays so busy with his painting and the babies. They’re just beginning to crawl without so much effort. Why, yesterday I saw Cory—I mean Darren—pick up a bug from the grass and try to put it in his mouth. It was Toni who ran to prevent that. I don’t recall Jory even looking at her.”
“He will, sooner or later. And Cathy, you’ve got to stop thinking of his twins as Cory and Carrie. If Jory hears you call them Cory or Carrie he’ll be angry. They are not our twins—they are Jory’s.”
Chris said nothing more during the long drive back to Foxworth Hall, not even when he turned into our long drive and then drove slowly into the garage.
* * *
“What’s going on in this crazy house?” Jory asked as soon as I stepped onto the terrace, where he was seated on an athletic mat put on the flagstones. The twins were with him, playing happily in the sunshine. “Shortly after you left to drive Cindy to the airport, a crew of construction workers arrived and knocked and banged away in that downstairs room Joel likes to pray in. I didn’t see Bart, and I didn’t want to talk to Joel. And then there’s something else—”
“I don’t understand . . .”
“It’s that damned nurse you and Dad hired, Mom. She’s gorgeous and she’s good at her job—when I can get hold of her. I’ve been calling for ten minutes and she hasn’t responded. The twins are dripping wet, and she didn’t bring out enough diapers so I can change them again. I can’t go in the house and get more without leaving them alone. They scream now when I try to put them in the slings. They want to be on their own. Especially Deirdre.”
I diapered the twins myself and put them down for naps, then went in search of the newest member in our household.
To my astonishment I found her in the new swimming pool with Bart, both of them laughing, splashing water at one another.
“Hi, Mother!” called Bart, looking tan and healthy, and happier than I’d seen him since the days when he had believed himself in love with Melodie. “Toni plays a super game of tennis. It’s great having her here. We were both so hot after all that exercise that we decided to cool off in the pool.”
The look in my eyes was read clearly by Antonia Winters. Immediately she clambered out of the pool and began to dry off. She toweled her dark curly hair dry, then wrapped her red bikini with the same white towel. “Bart has asked me to call him by his first name. You won’t mind if I do that, will you, Mrs. Sheffield?”
I looked her over appraisingly, wondering if she was truly responsible enough to take care of Jory and the twins. I liked her dark hair that sprang immediately into soft waves and curls to frame her face becomingly without makeup. She was about five eight and had as many voluptuous curves as Cindy, curves that Bart had despised on his sister. But from the way he was looking at the nurse, he approved of her figure very much.
“Toni,” I began with control, “Jory, who I hired you to help, tried to call you to bring more diapers for the twins. He was out on the terrace with his children, and you should have been with him, not Bart. We hired you expecting you’d see that neither Jory or his children would be neglected.”
Embarrassment heated her face. “I’m sorry, but Bart . . .” and here she hesitated, seeming flustered as she glanced at him.
“It’s all right, Toni. I accept the blame, “ said Bart. “I told her Jory was fine and able to take care of himself and the twins. It seems to me he has made a big point of being independent.”
“See that this doesn’t happen again, Toni,” I said, disregarding Bart.
That damned man was going to drive all of us batty! Then I had a brilliant idea. “Bart, you and Toni would have done Jory a great favor if you had included him in your swimming party. He has full use of his arms. In fact, he has very powerful arms. And you should remember, Bart, that it’s rather dangerous to have a pool like this without a fence, when two small children are around. So, Toni, with Jory’s help, I’d like you both to begin teaching the twins how to swim . . . just in case.”
Thoughtfully Bart stared at me, seeming to read my mind. He glanced again at Antonia, who was striding toward the house. “So you’re going to stay on—why?”
“Don’t you want us to stay?”
His smile radiated his dead father’s charm. “Why, yes, of course, I do. Now that Toni has come to brighten up my lonely hours.”
“You leave her alone, Bart!”
He grinned at me wickedly and began to backpaddle in the pool, performing a backward flip that brought him up near my feet to grasp my ankles so hard it hurt. For a moment I feared he’d pull me in the pool and ruin the silk dress I wore.
I stared down and met his dark, suddenly menacing, eyes, not flinching. “Let go of my ankles. I’ve already had my morning swim.”
“Why not swim with me sometimes?”
What did he see that made the threat leave and sadness come, a look so wistful he leaned to kiss my toes with the pink nails that peeked through the s
andals? Then he was breaking my heart. Speaking with the exact tones of his dead father: “I think that I shall never see, anyone quite as lovely as thee . . .” He looked up. “See, Mother, I’ve got a bit of artistic talent, too.”
This was my moment. He was vulnerable, touched by something he saw on my face. “Yes, of course you do, but Bart, don’t you feel just a little sorry that Cindy is gone?”
His dark eyes grew hard, remote. “No, not sorry. I’m glad she’s gone. Did I prove to you what she really was?”
“You proved just how hateful you can be.”
His eyes darkened more. A fiercely determined look came to frighten me. He glanced toward the house on hearing some slight shuffling noise. I looked that way. Joel had come out onto the grassy area that enclosed our long oval pool.
Silently Joel condemned us with his pale blue eyes, his long-fingered bony hands steepled beneath his chin. He tilted back his head and stared heavenwise. His weak, sweet voice came to us falteringly. “You keep the Lord waiting, Bart, while you waste your time.”
Helplessly I watched Bart’s eyes flood with guilt before he scampered from the pool. For a moment he stood in all his youthful male glory, his long, strong legs deeply bronze, his belly hard and flat, his shoulders wide, his muscles firm, rippling beneath his skin, the hair on his chest curling, and for a flashing second I thought he was flexing his strong muscles, preparing them for a lion’s charge that would lunge him straight at Joel’s throat. I tensed, wondering if he would even consider striking his uncle.
A cloud drifted over the sun. Somehow it caused shadows from the unlit poolside lamps to form a cross on the ground. Bart stared downward.
“You see, Bart,” said Joel in a compelling voice I’d never heard before, “you neglect your duties and the sun disappears. God gives you his sign of the cross. He’s always watching. He hears. He knows you. For you have been chosen.”
Chosen for what?
Almost as if Joel had him hypnotized, Bart followed his great-uncle into the house, leaving me standing alone beside the pool. I hurried to tell Chris about Joel. “What can he mean, Chris—by saying that Bart has been chosen?”
Chris had just come in from visiting Jory and the twins. He forced me to sit, to relax. He even handed me my favorite mixed drink before he sat beside me on our small balcony overlooking the gardens and the mountains all around. “I had a few words with Joel minutes ago. It seems Bart hired workers to construct a small chapel in that small, empty room he favors for his prayers.”
“A chapel?” I asked with bewilderment. “Why do we need a chapel?”
“I don’t think it is meant for us, it’s for Bart and Joel. A place where they can worship without going into the village and facing up to all the villagers who despise Foxworths. And if it’s what Bart thinks will help him to find himself, for God’s sake, don’t say a word to condemn what he’s doing with Joel. Cathy, I don’t think Joel is an evil man. I think, more than anything he’s trying to make himself a candidate for sainthood.”
“A saint? Why, that would be like putting a halo above the head of Malcolm!”
Chris grew impatient with me. “Let Bart do what he wants. I’ve decided it’s time we left here, anyway. I can’t talk to you in this house and expect a sane answer. We’ll move to Charlottesville and take Jory, the twins, and Toni with us, just as soon as I can find a house that’s suitable.”
Unknown to me, Jory had rolled himself into our suite of rooms, and he startled me when he spoke up. “Mom, Dad may be right. Joel could be the kind, benign saint he often appears. Sometimes I think we are both overly suspicious, and then again, you are so often right. I study Joel when he isn’t watching. I think in many ways he’s trying not to be what we most fear—a duplicate of the grandfather you both hated.”
“I think all of this is ridiculous! Of course Joel isn’t like his father, or else he wouldn’t have hated him so much,” Chris flared with sudden and unusual anger, his expression hard and totally out of patience not only with me but with Jory. “All this talk about souls being born again in later generations is absolute nonsense. We don’t need to add complications to our lives when they’re complicated enough already.”
The next Monday Chris drove off again, heading back to the job he now loved just as much as he’d loved being a practicing physician. I stood staring after his car, feeling my rival was his blossoming love affair with biochemistry.
The dinner table seemed lonely without Chris or Cindy there, and Toni was upstairs putting the twins to bed, a fact that annoyed Bart greatly. He said several things to Jory about Toni, meant to imply she was already madly in love with him. This information didn’t affect Jory one way or another; he was too deep in his own thoughts. He didn’t say two words during the entire meal, even when eventually Toni did join us.
* * *
Another Friday evening came, and with it Chris returned, as once Daddy had come home every Friday. Somehow or other I was disturbed by the similarities of our lives compared to our parents’ lives. Saturday we spent most of the day in the pool with Jory and the twins, with Toni and I supporting the babies as Chris helped Jory, who really didn’t need much help. He took off across the water, expertly swimming, his strong arms more than making up for his legs that trailed limply behind. In the pool, with his legs under the water, he appeared so much himself that it showed on his happy face.
“Hey, this is great! Let’s not move away from here yet. There aren’t many houses in Charlottesville with pools like this. And I need the wide hallways and the elevator. And I’ve grown accustomed to Bart, and even to Joel.”
“I might not be coming next weekend.” Chris didn’t meet my eyes as he gave out this startling information at our Sunday breakfast table. He went on, steadfastly refusing to look my way or meet anyone’s eyes. “There’s a convention of biochemists in Chicago and I’d like to fly there. I’ll be gone two weeks. If you want to join me, Cathy, I’d be grateful.”
Bart keened his ears my way, digging his spoon into his ripe melon. His dark eyes held a quiet, waiting look, as if his entire life depended upon my answer. I wanted to go with Chris. In the worst way I wanted to escape this house, its problems, and to be alone with the man I loved. I wanted to be near him, but I had to deny him and make this last-ditch effort to save Bart. “I’d like very much to go with you, Chris. But Jory is embarrassed to ask Toni to do some intimate things for him. He needs me here.”
“For Christ’s sake! That’s why we hired her! She’s a nurse!”
“Chris, not under my roof do you take the Lord’s name in vain.”
Glaring at Bart for saying this, Chris rose to his feet. “I’ve suddenly lost my appetite. I’ll eat breakfast in town, if I can regain an appetite for anything again.”
He glared at me accusingly, flashed angry eyes at Bart, put his hand briefly on Jory’s shoulder, and then he was off.
It was a good thing I’d asked him to find a nurse before this happened. Now he’d more than likely close his ears to what I wanted to do for my two sons who were, in one way or another, driving a wedge between us. Yet I couldn’t leave Jory when I wasn’t really sure Toni would take good care of him, not yet.
Toni joined us at our luncheon table wearing a fresh white uniform. The three of us at the table talked of the weather and of other mundane things while she sat with her eyes fixed on Bart. Beautiful soft, luminous, gray eyes filled with awe—and infatuation. It was so obvious I wanted to warn her to look at Jory, to see him and not the man who was most likely to destroy her.
Sensing her admiration, Bart turned on his charm, laughing and telling her some silly stories that mocked the little boy he’d been. Each word he said entranced her more, as Jory sat unnoticed in his detested chair, pretending to read the morning newspaper.
Day by day I could see Toni’s infatuation with Bart growing, even as she kindly tended to the twins and patiently did what she could for Jory. My firstborn son stayed in a sullen mood, waiting constantly for telephone
calls from Melodie, waiting for letters that didn’t come, waiting for someone to help with things he used to do for himself and no longer could. I sensed his impatience when it took the servants so long to make up his bed, to tidy his rooms, to get out of his way and leave him alone.
He drove himself relentlessly, hired an art instructor to come three times a week and teach him different techniques. Work, work, work . . . he was driving himself to become the best artist possible, as once he’d dedicated himself to practicing his ballet exercises morning, night and noon.
The four Ds of the ballet world never died in some of us. Drive, Dedication, Desire, Determination.
“Do you think Toni is an adequate nursemaid for the twins?” I asked one evening as she took off down the road, pushing the twins in a double stroller. They loved being outdoors. Just to see the stroller brought squeals of pleasure and excitement. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than both Jory and I saw Bart racing to catch up with the nurse. Then the two of them were pushing Jory’s children.
Uneasily I waited for Jory to speak. He said nothing. I glanced to see his bitter expression as he stared after Bart, now taking charge of his children, and the nurse I’d hired for him. It was as if I could read his thoughts. He didn’t stand a chance with any woman now that he was in that chair. Now that his legs didn’t dance, or even walk. Yet his doctors had told Chris and me that many handicapped men married and lived more or less normal lives. The percentages for marriage were much higher for disabled men than for handicapped women. “Women have more compassion than men. Most normal men think more of their own needs. It takes an exceptionally compassionate and understanding man to marry a woman who isn’t physically normal.”
“Jory, do you still miss Melodie?”
He stared gloomily before him, deliberately turning his eyes away from Toni and Bart, who’d paused to sit on a tree stump, apparently talking.
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 150
