“Probably some of your old stuff too,” offered Diana.
She followed her sister, moving through the motions of pulling down the steps from the attic, steadying the stairs as Diana’s thin body disappeared into the dark hole. A splinter speared her finger, drawing forth the merest pinprick of blood; she stared at the red drop as if it had nothing to do with her. The first shock was washing away. She tested her mental temperature and found herself cool, calm, ready to rip the dead Cam – and the living Mark – apart.
So he – Cam – had given her father money? After all his fine talk about protecting Meg, he had contacted her father. That money apparently had stretched over a long period of time, and he’d never told her, never so much as hinted at it. So much for his accusation, the night he asked for the divorce, that she had cut him out of her heart. He couldn’t keep his women a secret, but he had concealed his dealings with her family?
And the terrible corollary: that Dominic had known where she was, all these years.
She put her pricked finger to her mouth.
Diana’s head poked back through the hole. “You won’t believe what’s up here. Come on up.”
“Okay.” No one to steady the steps for her. She stomped up the rickety steps, pretending that each step was one of Mark’s limbs – in the hereafter, Cam should be heaving a sigh of relief that he was beyond her reach – and Diana reached out to haul her in at the top. “What did you find?”
“Look,” was all Diana said, and Laura turned and fell silent.
Dresses carelessly piled up, silks upon satins upon velvets, once rich in color and tone, now rich in dust. The clothes of a woman long vanished from their lives, a woman who had gone sailing in a storm one day and never returned. The love of Dominic’s life. His muse.
One dress, heirloomed in plastic, she recognized as Diana’s wedding gown. She shoved the checks to the back of her mind – time enough to deal with Mark later – and pulled a long lacy concoction out from under a burgundy velvet robe into the light. “Incredible!” She held the dress against her. “Look, my bridesmaid dress. Was I really that short?” She lifted one dress, then another, shaking the dust, smoothing down torn laces and matted velvets. “I can’t believe this! He threw out her pictures, and he kept all this….”
“And look at this.” Diana gently eased a black Schiaparelli, fragile with age and use, out from under a discarded prom dress. “Daddy bought this for Mama to wear in Milan, when he conducted Aida. Gosh, Laurie, she was pregnant with you right then. I remember, she came and kissed me in bed before she left, and she looked so radiant, like a queen. She was wearing a tiara—”
“The beading!” She ran reverent fingers over the dress. “Will you look at this! That must have cost a fortune—”
“All hand done,” said Diana matter-of-factly, but her eyes were sparkling. “These must be worth a lot of money. Antique clothes are all the rage now, I’ll bet some museum would be interested—”
“Oh, Di, no.” She was entranced by this glimpse into her mother’s history. “If money’s a consideration, I’ll take them! Maybe I can wear these in concert. In fact,” she shook out the black silk again and held it out for critical examination, “this might work for the concert, don’t you think? That is, if you don’t mind—”
She’d seen that immediate stiffening; she saw Diana now relax. Her permission asked, Diana nodded graciously. “No, it’s okay. She was your mother too! But that dress has to be repaired.”
“Maybe with some of the beading replaced and the shoulder lowered – where’s a mirror, I need to try it on—”
They retrieved their treasures from the attic stronghold, Laura standing at the bottom of the steps and catching all that Diana carefully handed down to her. The hallway filled up rapidly with a cascade of falling material and rising dust. Some of the clothes were ruined, stained and eaten by animal and time; a cigarette burn in one bodice probably rendered the dress beyond repair. Dominic had not cared for this sliver of his past.
But his daughters reveled in it. Laura dragged the clothes into Diana’s room in the front, and Diana whipped the cover off an old standing mirror. “Try the black on,” she urged, and her hands went to the buttons of her own blouse. “And this gold silk – they said Grandma wore this when she sang in Paris the night she died—”
They shucked their jeans and blouses eagerly. They caught each other in surreptitious survey of the other’s body (had Cat Courtney had any breast work done? what havoc had gravity and childbirth wreaked on Diana?) and laughed at the obligatory nature of it all. “Sisters,” explained Diana with a shrug, and Laura mourned her lack of curves.
“Face it,” said Diana, “we’re not Lucy, damn her sex-goddess self.”
The black silk shimmied around Laura, lush and cool against her body as Diana helped her pull it on and zipped up the side under the arm. Generous in the bosom, Laura noted; it needed Lucy to do it justice. A little short – she must be taller than Renée Dane, but the beaded black fringe off one of the ruined dresses would take care of that. Full through the waist, to accommodate a pregnancy. (And she had caused that; for her, Renée Dane had put away the stunning slim-waisted dresses Diana rummaged through.) One shoulder sloped – she pulled it up, then down, and frowned.
The dress was gorgeous. She took stock of herself in the mirror, noting that the dress set off her hair and eyes but faded her skin into ghostly paste. She’d need a good makeup job to wear this in concert.
“Doesn’t quite work,” Diana said, and to her credit, she sounded only vaguely malicious. “Not quite Cat Courtney, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, yes, it is,” said Laura, closed her eyes, and concentrated.
She thought herself into the wings of the stage, waiting to go on, waiting for the fantasy to claim her. She’d learned this trick long ago, to escape Dominic’s cold rages by becoming a fairy princess, adored by her father, beloved of Prince Charming. She dipped her head and shook her hair out, then rose up and met Diana’s eyes in the mirror.
Not Laura Abbott now, not even that demure matron Laura St. Bride. The woman in the mirror looked mysteriously like a cat now, with a narrowed, intense face and an adventurous mouth and eyes that glowed come-hither. Her posture had altered, just enough that the bodice filled out better, and the recalcitrant shoulder now slipped down and exposed an interesting amount of bosom.
“Wow!” Diana looked impressed, despite herself. “I’ve heard about this – how do you do it?”
Laura shrugged Cat Courtney away. “I psych myself into it. I used to be afraid that I’d vamp across the stage, and people would laugh. But now—” she stepped back from the mirror, and cocked her head, “I think this will work, don’t you?”
“Definitely.” Diana unzipped her. “The dress needs altering, but I know someone who’s very good and not very expensive. Not that you need to count pennies.” She held out the gold dress. “My turn. Who knows? Maybe I’ll wear this when I play for you. The gold and black will make a great contrast.”
They tried on dress after dress, giggling like two little girls playing dress-up. She had missed this, Laura thought, zipping Diana into yet another gown. She had missed this sharing, this laughter; she couldn’t remember ever feeling this close to her sister in her life. And strange, too, that she felt so at ease with Diana, who had thrown away so much that she herself would have cherished.
“Do you think Lucy will want any of these?” she asked, as they carried the last load to her car.
“They’re not Lucy’s to take,” said Diana. “She’s not Mama’s daughter. And, as she keeps reminding us, she won’t be able to fit into them soon.”
There it was again, that strange antagonism. She thought she could risk asking. “Di, what is it about this baby of hers? Why are you so upset?”
For a moment, she thought Diana might refuse to answer. Her sister paused in the doorway of the house, her face hidden in the shadows.
“She nearly died,” Diana said finally, and Laura felt
her heart drop. “She didn’t tell you that, did she? She nearly bled to death. Her doctor was very firm with her, told her not to attempt another pregnancy for a while. So what did she do at the first opportunity? Get pregnant again, and hemorrhage again, and then get pregnant again so she can keep on risking her life! I can’t lose her. You probably think I’m selfish, and, so what, I admit it. I don’t have my husband, and I don’t have my daughter, and my father’s dead. Lucy is all I have. I’m damned if I’m losing her too.”
She turned on her heel and marched inside. Laura caught up with her in the music room and stopped her with a touch of the hand.
“You have me, Di.”
She meant it. She’d never meant it more.
“Do I?” Diana rotated slowly, deliberately. “Do I really? I don’t know you. I don’t think I ever did. Cat Courtney – what I saw upstairs – didn’t exist in the sister I knew. Maybe I was blind. I’ll plead guilty to that, I was never very good at figuring people out. But Daddy didn’t see it either—”
She couldn’t let that pass. “Oh, yes, he did.”
Diana considered that. “All right, maybe he did. I never understood why he was so harsh with you, unless you threatened him. Should I feel threatened too? You’re a big star. You’ve got millions of dollars. I don’t know why you came home, and I don’t trust you to stay.”
“I’m staying.” She found confidence in the strength of her voice. “You’re right to keep me at arm’s length until I prove myself. I had to stay away, I had good solid reasons I’ll defend to my death. But I came back for you and Lucy. I am your sister, Di.”
Diana said softly, “Not as much as you are hers.”
Francie’s ghost beckoned, pleaded, insisted, Francie, her entire purpose for coming here this day, to this house, to confront this woman. How could she have forgotten Francie…. But somehow, faced with a living, breathing sister whose hurt shone through her eyes, she could not hold onto Francie, slipping away into memory. Diana was here and now, and Francie, vengeful Francie, dead-eyed Francie, had lost her power to divide sister from sister.
She’d never thought of her sisters in that light before, that Francie and Diana had fought each other over more than Richard. She and Lucy had been spoils of war too, in the duel over the great unattainable prize of Dominic Abbott. Lucy had belonged to Diana, she to Francie, each a tool useful for bringing a sister down. Rivals from Francie’s birth, rivals to Francie’s death.
But not rivals over her. Not anymore.
She saw her choices laid out clearly before her, Lucy and Diana, flawed but alive, against dead, missed Francie. And she chose.
She whispered, “Play for me, Di.”
Oh, a good move, that. Diana couldn’t resist; too much of the performer still lived inside. Maybe the same memories flooded into her: the few happy times in this room, Diana’s younger sisters gathered around the piano while she played and Dominic, audience of one, listened and critiqued. The wariness faded from her eyes; she moved towards the piano. “What would you like to hear?”
“Something Rachmaninoff?”
“Oh, you romantic you!” But, for all her mocking, Diana sat down to play.
Of all Dominic’s daughters, she had been the most proficient pianist. Laura sat down beside her on the bench, but there was no music to turn, nothing to do but listen to the richness of Diana’s great talent. And such richness! Diana was a master. She coaxed, she flirted, she commanded; her fingers flew and attacked, then alighted and soothed, stroked and caressed. Notes of longing, of love forgotten on the shores of another sea, of hearts that should never have broken over loves that should never have bloomed.
But the longer she listened, the more she heard the hollowness. Something atonal, something echoed, she heard shining technique without feeling, notes shallow and dead at their source. No vast landscape of longing and desire, no mountains and valleys and geysers of the heart, only empty plains of ice, frozen in time and space, a static, unforgiving terrain with no promise of fire and life.
Notes. Dots and lines on paper. Finger striking key. No mood, no longing, no warmth. No music.
Laura listened, her eyes closed, chilled to her core.
How could Diana survive in such barrenness? And how had Richard lived with it? Maybe Francie had offered not revenge but warmth and life; maybe he had reached out to warm himself in her laughter after enduring the desolation of Diana’s heart.
“Well,” Diana swept the concerto to a close, “what do you think? Will I do?”
“You’re brilliant, Di.” A brilliant technician, yes. She’d have to sing over the music, supply the warmth for them both. “I brought some octavos over. How about a Cat Courtney song?”
“In this room?” Diana winked at her.
Laura laughed. “Do you think his ghost will rise up and smite us?”
“Let’s chance it.” Diana was a quick study; she started to play, and Laura put her surroundings out of mind and sang along. Not a very polished performance – Diana misread a measure she’d scribbled on the plane, and she disgraced herself by forgetting to switch keys. They ran through the song again and ended up with a mutual look of amused disgust.
“We’ll make it,” Laura said. “Di, you have got it. Are you still studying voice?”
Make her sing for you.
“I don’t sing anymore,” Diana said, and slammed the keyboard down. Laura jerked her hands out of the way to keep her fingers from being smashed. “And don’t tell me Lucy didn’t put you up to that, either.”
That startled her; Diana was nowhere as oblivious as Lucy would have her believe. “Yes, as a matter of fact, but forget that. Why don’t you sing anymore? You had a beautiful voice.”
“And it’s not beautiful now.” Diana stared out the window. “Do you remember the day you came back, and I asked why you didn’t do opera, and you said that only Daddy ever thought you were opera material?” She didn’t wait for Laura’s nod. “Daddy always pushed me on my voice. I mean, pushed me, I couldn’t have cared less. I hated all those hours, day and night and day again, doing those damn scales and working on my breath control and projection – Christ! It was misery! This—” She ran her hands lightly over the keys. “This is what I wanted, and he wouldn’t leave me alone.”
Laura said slowly, “I thought you loved him.”
“Loved him?” Diana looked at her, surprised. “Love didn’t enter into it. He was a genius, no one saw it but me, he was brilliant, his mind moved like fire – but, hell, Laurie, you know he was a lousy teacher. He had his agenda – it didn’t matter what I wanted, or you – we had to do it his way. He decided early on to make me a star, his captive soprano, and be damned to me if I wanted something else. And I did! But he wouldn’t listen.”
“I’ve wondered – maybe he didn’t want us to succeed.” She couldn’t help the sense of disloyalty, even now, saying the words in this room. It had taken so many years to see Dominic without the prism of fear. “He’d failed – so we had to fail. And he stacked the deck against us. It’s been so hard—” Laura felt the flickering of pain behind her eyes and shoved it away. She hadn’t the time for a headache, not now. “So hard to get his voice out of my head. I can do it most of the time, but – there are times – I can hear him still – hold that E! Get on top of that note! Enunciate! Breathe! Don’t breathe! Posture! Project!”
She heard the rising pitch of her voice, and clamped her mouth shut.
Diana was staring at her, and for a moment, only shocked silence lay between them.
She didn’t know where all that had come from. Remembering for Julie how Dominic had planned her future for her? Coming back to this house, sitting at this piano, with the shadows of those long-ago lessons too close at hand? Dead or not, Dominic Abbott still dominated the room. She could feel his spirit at her shoulder, as if, even in death, he reached out to hold her down at the piano when she would have escaped, because she hadn’t held the note long enough and he still wasn’t satisfied.
T
he memory of those eyes, as he told her to try again, and then again, chilled her skin.
She shuddered, and looked down at her hands, lying in her lap.
“Oh, my God,” whispered Diana, “it’s like listening to him. Did he do it to you too?”
Laura said wearily, “You got away, Di. What do you think happened after you got married?”
Something strange flickered in Diana’s eyes. “You think marriage saved me? Think again.” She straightened the octavos. “So what happened? Francie became the next Tebaldi?”
Laura shook her head. “He didn’t go after her. He went after me.”
She folded her arms against her chest to keep warm.
“You know why, don’t you?” Diana considered her. “You do, don’t you?”
She said nothing. She should have eaten some breakfast; she was starting to feel sick.
“I’ll tell you why.” Diana’s voice did not sound pretty now. “For the same reason he went after me. For the same reason he left Lucy alone. It wasn’t just Peggy and Philip protecting her – he wasn’t that interested in her ever. How much time did he spend with Francie compared to you?”
Oh, God, Diana had known. She had known, and she had done nothing. Laura drew a breath. “About half as much. He said I needed it more than she did.”
“You probably did,” said Diana flatly. “Francie had a pleasant little voice. She’d have done real well in a church choir. He wasn’t going to waste his time on her.”
It had been one thing to say it to Julie. Her niece hadn’t known Francie, hadn’t hated her. It was something else to hear Francie’s enemy – she with blood on her hands – utter the thoughts that had surely never been said aloud before: that Dominic was too much the professional musician not to have known who in the family had it and who did not.
And, with all the ruthlessness and efficiency he had shown for so long, he had channeled his resources where time and effort might pay off.
All Who Are Lost (Ashmore's Folly Book 1) Page 32
