Who ever counted the flowers that died when we pulled up the weeds? I shook my head, pulling myself out of the abyss of yesterdays and turned my full concentration on the moment.
"Melodie, Jory's just as scared as you are, much more so, and with good reason. You aren't to blame for anything. He's happy about the baby now that it's on its way. Many men protest when wives want babies, but when they see the child they helped create, they're won over. He lies there on his bed, as you lie on yours, wondering how his marriage is going to work out now that he can't dance. He's the one who is crippled. He's the one who has to face up to everyday life, knowing he'll be unable to sit when he wants to; knowing he can't sit in a regular chair and get up and down when he feels like it; nor can he walk in the rain, or run on the grass, or even go to the bathroom in a normal way.
"All the simple normal everyday things he took for granted will now be very difficult for him. And think of what he was. This is a terrible blow to his pride. He wasn't even going to try and cope for fear he'd burden you too much. But listen to this. This afternoon when I was with him, he said he was going to make a big effort to cheer up and lift himself out of his depression. And he will. He'll make it, and a lot of it will be because you've helped by just visiting and sitting there with him. Each time you go you convince him you still love him."
Why did she draw from my arms and turn her face away? I watched her brush the tears from her face impatiently; then she blew her nose and tried to stop crying.
With effort she spoke again. "I don't know what it is, but I keep having scary dreams. I wake up frightened, thinking something even more dreadful is going to happen. There's something weird about this house. Something strange and frightening. When everyone is gone, and
-
Bart is in his office, and Joel is praying in that ugly, bare room, I lie on my bed and seem to hear the house whispering. It seems to call to me. I hear the wind blow as if it's trying to tell me something. I hear the floor squeak outside my door so I jump up and race to throw open the door--and no one is there, no one is ever there. I suspect it's only my imagination, but I hear, as you've said you do sometimes, so much of what isn't real. Am I losing my mind, Cathy? Am I?"
"Oh, Melodie," I murmured, trying to draw her close again, but she put me off by moving to the far end . of the sofa.
"Cathy, why is this house different?"
"Different from what?" I asked uneasily.
"From all other houses." She glanced fearfully toward the door to the hall. "Don't you feel it? Can't you hear it? Do you sense this house is breathing, like it has a life of its own?"
My eyes widened as a chill stole the comfort from my pretty sitting room. In the bedroom I could faintly hear Chris's regular, heavy breathing.
Melodie, usually too reticent to talk, gushed onward breathlessly. "This house wants to use the people inside as a way to keep it living on forever. It's like a vampire, sucking our lifeblood from all of us. I wish it hadn't been restored. It's not a new house. It's been here for centuries. Only the wallpaper and the paint and the furniture are new, but those stairs in the foyer I never climb up or descend without seeing the ghosts of others .. ."
A kind of paralyzing numbness gripped me.
Every word she said was only too frighteningly true. I
could
hear it breathe!
I
tried to pull myself back to reality. "Listen, Melodie. Bart was only a little boy when my mother ordered it reconstructed on the foundations of the old manor home. Before she died it was up, but not completely finished inside. When her will was read, and she left this house to Bart, with Chris as trustee to manage until he came of age, we decided it was a waste not to have it completed. Chris and our attorney contacted the architects and contractors, and the job went forward until it was finished, only the inside needed furbishing. That had to wait until Bart came here in his college days and ordered the interior decorators to style it as it had been in the old days. And you're right. I, too, wish this house had been left in ashes . . ."
"Maybe your mother knew this house was what Bart would want most to give him confidence. It's so imposing. Haven't you noticed how much he's changed? He's not like the little boy who used to hide away in the shadows and lurk behind trees. He's the master here, like a baron overseeing his domain. Or maybe I should say king of the mountain, for he's so rich, so terribly rich . . ."
Not yet . . . not yet, I kept thinking.
Nevertheless, her frail, whispering voice disturbed me. I didn't want to think Bart was as overbearing as a medieval lord. But she went on. "Bart's happy, Cathy, extraordinarily happy. He tells me he's sorry about Jory. Then he telephones those attorneys and wants to know why they keep postponing the rereading of his grandmother's will. They've told him they can't read it unless everyone mentioned in the will is here to hear the reading, and so they put it off until the day when Jory comes home from the hospital. They will read the will in Bart's office."
"How do you know so much about Bart's business?" I asked sharply, suddenly very suspicious of all that time when she was alone in this house with my second son . . . and an old man who spent most of his time in that tiny, naked room he used as a chapel. Joel would quite happily see Jory destroyed if that would satisfy Bart. In Joel's eyes a dancing man was no better than the worst sinner, displaying his body. Leaping and bounding in front of women, wearing nothing but a loincloth . . . I stared again at Melodie.
"Do you and Bart spend much time together?"
Quickly she stood. "I'm tired now, Cathy. I've said enough to make you think I'm crazy. Do all expectant mothers have such fearful dreams--did you? I'm afraid, too, that my baby won't be normal since I've grieved so much for Jory."
I gave her what comfort I could when I felt sick inside, and later that night while I lay beside Chris I began to toss and turn, to flit in and out of nightmares, until he wakened and pleaded with me to let him get some sleep. Turning, I wrapped my arms about him, clinging to him as if to some unsinkable raft--as I'd always clung to the only straw that kept me from drowning in the cruel sea of Foxworth Hall.
Finally the decorators I'd hired to do over Jory's suite of rooms were finished. Now everything there was planned for his entertainment and comfort and convenience. With Melodie beside me, we stood and surveyed all that had been done to make the room bright and cheerful.
"Jory likes color and lots of light, unlike some who want only darkness because it's richer
appearing," explained Melodie with a strange look haunting her eyes. Of course I knew she meant Bart. I gave her a quizzical look, wondering again how much time she spent with Bart, and what they talked about, and if he'd tried anything. Certainly all that wistful yearning I'd seen in his eyes would force him to make advances. And what better time than while Jory was away and Melodie was desperately needing? Then my safety valve turned on . . . Melodie despised Bart. She might need him to talk to, but that was all.
"Tell me what else I can do to help," I said, wanting her to do most of it so she'd feel needed, useful. In response she smiled for the first time with some show of happiness. "You can help me make the bed with the pretty new sheets I ordered." She ripped open the plastic wrappings, the movement making her fuller breasts jiggle. Her jeans were just beginning to show a slight bulge.
I was almost as worried about her as I was about Jory. An expectant mother needed to eat more, drink milk, take vitamins, and then there was this unexpected reversal of her former heavy depression. She was now completely accepting of Jory's unhappy situation. It was what I had wanted, yet it had come about too quickly, and that gave me the feeling it was false.
Then came an explanation of her newfound security. "Cathy, Jory's going to get well and dance again. I dreamed last night he was, and my dreams always come true."
Now I knew she was going to do what I'd done in the beginning, convince herself that Jory would recover someday, and on that kind of fantasy she was going to construct her life--and his.
I started to speak, to say what Chris had to me, but Bart stepped into the hallway outside, his large feet clumping heavily down the long, dim hall. He glowered at the once dark paneling that was now painted off- white so that paintings of the sea and shore would show up beautifully. Easy enough to see he was displeased with our changes.
"We lid it to please. Jory," I said before he could object, while Melodie stood silent and stared at him with the wide-eyed, helpless look of a child caught in a sticky situation. "I know you want your brother to be happy, and no one loves the sea, the surf; the sand and seabirds more than Jory. So, into this room we're putting a bit of the sea and shore--giving him the knowledge that all the important things in life will still exist for him. The sky above, the earth below, and the sea in between. He's not going to lack for anything, Bart. He's going to have what it takes to keep him alive and happy, and I know you want to do your part."
He was staring at Melodie, not half listening to me. His eyes riveted to those larger breasts, moving to study the curve of the baby swelling her belly. "Melodie, you could have come to me and asked before you did anything, since I'm the one who'll pay the bills." I was completely ignored, as if I weren't there at all.
"Oh, no," denied Melodie. "Jory and I have money. We can pay for the changes we've made in here .. . and I didn't think you would mind since you seem so concerned about him."
"You don't have to pay for anything," said Bart with surprising warmth. "The day Jory comes home, attorneys will be coming in the afternoon to read the will again, and this time I'll know exactly my full worth. I'm damned sick and tired of having that day postponed."
"Bart," I said, stepping so I was between him and Melodie, "you know why they haven't reread the will. They want Jory to be here and fully cognizant of what's going on."
He walked around me to deliberately lock his eyes with the huge, sad ones of Melodic. He spoke to her and her alone.
"You
just tell me what you need, and I'll deliver it yesterday. You and Jory can stay as long as you like."
They stood staring at each other across twenty feet of sea-blue velvet carpeting. Bart's dark eyes probed into her blue 'ones before he said softly, winningly, "Don't worry so much, Melodic. You and Jory have a home here forever if you want. I don't really give a damn what you do with these rooms. I do want Jory to be as comfortable and happy as possible."
Cindy's tale resounded like distant church bells in my memory. Insurance for all the guests . . . in case of accidents. Wet sand that should have been dry sand. Sand that clumped into cement and didn't instantly pour out to make the papier-mache columns safe.
Into my thoughts flitted memories of Bart when he was seven, eight, nine and ten .. .
Wish I had legs as pretty as Jory's. Wish I could run and dance like Jory. Gonna grow taller, gonna grow much bigger, gonna be more powerful than Jory. Someday. Someday.
Bart's mumbling boyhood wishes, said so many times I'd grown indifferent to them. Then, when he was older .. .
Who is gonna love me, like Melodie loves Jory? Nobody. Nobody.
I shook my head to rid myself of unwelcome memories of a little boy wanting to equal the stature of his older and more talented brother.
But why was he looking now at Melodie with such significance? Her blue eyes lifted to meet his briefly; then she looked away, blushing again, positioning her hands in the ballet position all dancers used to keep from drawing attention away from the main performer --her feet toed out. On stage, Melodie was on stage, playing a role.
Bart strode off, his long legs confident and sure, as they'd never been when he was a young boy. I felt sad and sorry he had to wait until he was out of Jory's shadow before he could find even the ability to use his body coordination with skill. Sighing, I decided to think of the present and all that had been done to give Jory's convalescence the perfect environment.
A large color TV was at the foot of his bed, and he had a remote control unit to change channels and turn it off and on from his bed. An electrician had arranged a way for Jory to open and close his draperies when he chose. A stereo was within his reach. Books lined the back of his adjustable bed, which would sit him up and turn him into almost any position he wanted. Melodie and I, with Chris's help, had wracked our brains to come up with every modern convenience that would enable him to do what he could for himself. Now all we had to do was to see he stayed busy with some occupation of real interest, enough to absorb his energies and challenge his innate talents.
A long time ago I'd started reading books on psychology, my poor attempt to try and help Bart. Now I could help Jory with his "racehorse" personality that had to compete and win. He couldn't endure boredom, lying about doing nothing. There was already a
barre
along the wall without windows, put there recently, to give him the promise that one day he'd stand up, even if he would have to wear a back brace connected to leg braces. I sighed to think of my beautiful, graceful son stumbling along like a horse in a harness; then tears were streaking my face. Tears I quickly blinked away so Melodie wouldn't see them.
Soon Melodie was tired and left to lie down and rest. I finished up in the room, then hurried to oversee the ramps being constructed to take Jory down to the terraces and the gardens. No effort was being spared to see he would not be confined to his room. There was also a newly installed elevator put where once there had been a butler's pantry.
At last came the wonderful day when Jory was allowed to leave the hospital and come home. The cast was still on his back, but he was eating and drinking normally and had gained back his color and a little of the weight he'd lost. My heart ached with pity to see him flat on a stretcher, being rolled to the elevator, when once he'd taken the stairs three at a time. I saw him turn his head to stare at the stairs as if he'd sell his soul to use them again.
But, smiling, he looked around the grand suite of rooms all refurbished and his eyes sparkled. "It's great, what you've done, really great. My favorite color combination, white and blue. You've given me the seashore--why, I can almost smell the surf, hear the seagulls. It's wonderful, truly wonderful what paint and pictures, green plants and planning can do."
His wife stood at the foot of the narrow bed he'd have to use until the cast came off, but she took pains not to meet his eyes. "Thanks for liking what we've done. Your mother and I, and Chris, too, really tried to please you."
His blue eyes turned navy as he stared at her, sensing something I, too, felt. He looked toward the windows, his full lips thinning, before he drew back into his shell.
Immediately I stepped forward to hand him a huge box, saved for this kind of uncomfortable moment. "Jory, something meaningful for you to do while you're still confined to the bed. Don't want you staring at that boob tube all the time."
Seeming relieved not to have to trouble his wife with words she didn't want to hear, he feigned childish eagerness by shaking the huge box. "A compressed elephant? An unsinkable surfboard?" he guessed, looking only at me. I ruffled his curly hair, leaned to hug and kiss him and ordered him to hurry and open that box. I was dying to hear what he thought of my gift that had traveled all the way from New England.
Soon he had the ribbons and pretty wrapping off and was staring down at the long box containing what appeared to be neat bundles of super-long matchsticks. Tiny bottles of paint, larger bottles of glue, with spools of thin cording, carefully packaged cloth. "A kit to make a clipper ship," he said with both wonder and dismay. "Mom, there are ten pages of instructions! This thing is so complicated it will take me the better part of my life to complete. And when it's done--if ever--what will I have?"
"What will you have? My son, you will have when you are finished an heirloom that will be priceless, to leave to your son or daughter." All said so proudly, so sure he could follow the difficult directions. "You have steady hands, a good eye for details, a ready understanding of the written word and such determination. Besides, take a look at that empty mantel that demands a ship smack in the middle."
Laughing, he laid his head back on the pillow, already exhausted. He closed his eyes. "Okay, you've convinced me. I'll give it a go--but I've not had much experience with any craft since I was a kid gluing airplane parts together."
Oh, yes, I remembered clearly. They'd dangled down from his ceiling, infuriating Bart, who couldn't glue anything together properly at that time.
"Mom . . . I'm tired. Give me a chance to nap before the lawyers come to read that will. I don't know if I'm up to all the excitement of Bart's 'coming into his own'--at last."
It was at this moment that Bart stepped into the room. Jory sensed him there and opened his eyes. The dark brown and dark blue brotherly eyes met, locked, challenging the other for a dreadfully long time. The silence grew and grew until I became aware of my own heart throbs; the clock behind me ticked too loud, and Melodie was breathing heavily. I heard the birds outside twittering before Melodie began to rearrange another vase of flowers just for something to do.
On and on they clashed eyes, wills, when Bart should speak and welcome home the brother he'd visited only once. Still he just stood there, as if he'd keep his eyes locked on Jory until Jory broke the spell and lost the silent battle of wills.
I had my lips parted to stop this contest when Jory smiled and said warmly, without lowering his eyes or breaking the bind, "Hi, brother. I know how much you hate hospitals, so it was doubly nice for you to visit me. Since I'm here, in your home . . . isn't it easier to say hello? I'm glad my accident didn't spoil your birthday party. I heard from Cindy that my fall only momentarily lulled the hilarity, and the party went on as if nothing had happened."
Still Bart stood there saying nothing. Melodie put the last rose in the vase and lifted her head. A few tendrils of her fair hair had escaped the tight confinement of her ballerina bun to make her look charmingly casual and antiquely fragile. There was an air of weariness about her as if she'd surrendered to life and all its vicissitudes. Was I imagining that she sent some silent warning to Bart--and he understood? Suddenly he was smiling, even if it was stiff.
"I'm glad you're back. Welcome home, Jory." He strode forward to clasp his brother's hand. "If there's anything I can do, just let me know." Then he left the room, and I was staring after him, wondering .. .
At four exactly, that very afternoon, shortly. after Jory woke up and Chris and Bart lifted him onto a stretcher, three attorneys came to take over Bart's grand home office. We sat in fine milk-chocolate-colored leather chairs, all but Jory, who lay on a rolling stretcher very still and quiet. His tired eyes were half opened, showing his interest was small. Cindy had flown home to be here, as was required, for she, too, was mentioned in the will. She perched on the arm of my chair, swinging her shapely leg back and forth, treating all of this as a joke while Joel glared to see that blue high-heeled shoe moving constantly and calling attention to those remarkably lovely legs. We all sat as if at a funeral, as papers were shuffled, spectacles were put on and whisperings between the lawyers made us all uneasy.
Bart was particularly nervous, exalted looking, but suspicious of the way the attorneys kept glancing at him. The eldest of the three acted as spokesman as word by careful word the main portion of my mother's will was read once again. We'd heard it all before.
". . . when my grandson, Bartholomew Winslow Scott Sheffield, who will eventually claim his rightful surname of Foxworth, reaches the age of twenty-five," read the man in his late sixties with the glasses perched low on his nose, "he will be given the annual sum of five hundred thousand dollars, until he reaches the age of thirty-five. At this stated age, the remainder of my estate, hereafter called The Corrine Foxworth Winslow Trust, will be turned over in entirety to my grandson, Bartholomew Winslow Scott Sheffield Foxworth. My firstborn son, Christopher Garland Sheffield Foxworth, will remain in his position as trustee until the aforesaid time. If he, the trustee, should not survive until the time when my grandson Bartholomew Winslow Scott Sheffield Foxworth reaches the age of thirty-five, then my daughter, Catherine Sheffield Foxworth, shall be named as replacement trustee until my aforesaid grandson reaches his thirty-fifth birthday."
There was more, much more, but I didn't hear anything else. I filled with shock and glanced at Chris, who seemed dumbfounded. Then my eyes rested on Bart.
His face was pale, registering a kaleidoscope of changing expressions. His color waxed and waned. He raked his long, strong fingers. through his perfect hairstyle and left it rumpled. Helplessly he looked at Joel as if for guidance, but Joel only shrugged and crooked his lips as if to say, "I told you so."
Next Bart was glaring at Cindy as if her presence had magically changed his grandmother's will. His eyes flitted to Jory, who was lying sleepily on the stretcher, appearing disinterested in everything going on but Melodic, who stared at Bart with her pale, woebegone face flickering like a weak candle flame in the strong wind of Bart's disappointment.
Quickly Bart jerked his sizzling gaze away when her head lowered to Jory's chest. Almost silently she was crying.
An eternity seemed to pass before that elderly lawyer folded the long will, replaced it in a blue folder, then put that on Bart's desk. He stood with folded arms to wait for Bart's questions.
"What the hell is going on?" shouted Bart.
He jumped to his feet, stalked to his desk and seized up the will, which he thumbed through quickly with the eye of an expert. Finished, he hurled down the will. "Damn her to hell! She promised me everything, everything! Now I have to wait ten more years .. . why wasn't that part read before? I was there. I was ten years old, but I remember her will stating I'd come into my own when I was twenty-five. I'm twenty-five and one month old--where is my reward?"
Chris stood. "Bart," he said calmly, "you have five hundred thousand dollars a year--that kind of money isn't to be shrugged off. And didn't you hear that all your living expenses, and the cost of running this house and maintaining it, will be taken care of by the bulk of monies still in trust? All your taxes will be prepaid. And five hundred thousand a year for ten years is more money than ninety-nine point nine percent of the world will ever know in an entire lifetime. How much can you spend on supporting your own life-style after all other expenses are taken care of? Besides, those ten years will fly by, and then everything will be yours to do with as you want."
"How much more is there in toto?" Bart fired, his dark eyes rapacious and so intense they seemed to burn: His face was magenta colored from his rage.
"Five million paid to me over a period of ten years, but what will be left? Ten million more? Twenty, fifty, a billion--how much?"
"I really don't know," replied Chris coolly as the lawyers stared at Bart. "But I'd say, with honesty, that day when you finally do come into your own, all of it, you will be, beyond a doubt, one of the richest men in the world."
"But until then--you are!" screamed Bart. "YOU! Of all people, you! The very one who's sinned the most! It isn't fair, not fair at all! I've been misled, tricked!" His eyes glared at all of us first as he slammed out of his office, only to stick his head in a second later.
"You'll be sorry, Chris," he blazed fiercely. "You must have talked her into having that codicil added-- and instructed the attorneys not to read it aloud the day I heard it first, when I was ten.
It's your fault I haven't come into everything due me!"
As always it had been Chris's fault--or mine.