Silent for a moment, not one of us could speak. Then Cindy laughed. "Uncle, I thought of that in advance. I knew one day you'd feel threatened."
He left the room then.
Only too soon all the gifts were unwrapped, and Jory was staring worriedly at the litter on the floor, then scanning all around the room. "I didn't forget you, Bart," he said with concern. "Cindy and Dad helped me wrap it once, but then I undid the wrapping, touched up again, wrapped it myself the last time after Cindy helped me lift it in." He kept looking through the rubble of discarded foil and ribbons. "Early this morning, before the rest of you were up, I came down here and I put it under the tree. Where the hell did it go, I wonder? It's a huge box, wrapped in red foil, tied with silver ribbons--and by far the largest box under the tree."
Bart didn't say a word, as if he'd grown accustomed to disappointments and the lack of Jory's gift was of no importance.
Of course I knew Jory had worked for months and months to finish the clipper ship that had ended up three feet in length and just as tall, with all its fragile riggings exactly right. He'd even sent for special copper fittings and a solid brass wheel for the helm. Desperately Jory looked around. "Has anyone seen the big box wrapped in red foil, with Bart's name on the tag?" he asked.
Immediately I was on my feet and scrambling through the piles of boxes, papers, ribbons, tissues, with Chris soon joining me in the search. Cindy began her own search on the other side of the room. "Oh," she cried out. "Here it is, behind this red sofa." She carried it to Bart and put it on the floor near his feet, bowing in mocking obeisance. "For our lord, our master," she said sweetly, backing away. "I think Jory's a fool to give it to you after all the hard work he put into this thing, but maybe you'll be appreciative, for once."
Suddenly I noticed Joel had slipped back into the room to observe Bart. How strange his expression, how strange.
Bart dropped his sophistication like an unwanted garment and became childishly eager to open this particular gift. Already he was tearing into the package Jory had so beautifully and carefully wrapped. He glanced up at Jory, his smile warm, wide and happy, his dark eyes lit with boyish anticipation. "Ten to one it's that clipper ship you made, Jory. You really should keep that yourself . . . but thanks, thanks a heap--" He paused, then sucked in his breath.
He stared down into the box, paling before he looked upward, his happiness vanished. Now his eyes were full of bitterness. "It's broken," he said in a dull tone. "Smashed to small pieces. There's nothing in this box but broken matchsticks and tangled rigging."
His voice cracked as he stood up and dropped the box to the floor. Violently he kicked it aside before he threw a hard look at Melodie, who hadn't said a word even when she opened her gifts, only thanked us with nods and weak smiles. "I should have known you would find the perfect way to repay me for sleeping with your wife."
Stunned silence rumbled louder than thunder. Melodic sat on, bleakly staring, seeming an empty shell, even as she mumbled on and on about how much she hated this house. Jory's eyes went starkly blank.
Had he guessed all along? All of Jory's color vanished before finally he could force his eyes to look at Melodie. "I don't believe you, Bart. You've always had a nasty, hateful way of kicking where it hurts most."
"I'm not lying," lashed out Bart, disregarding the pain he was inflicting on Jory, on me and Chris. "While you lay on your hospital bed, inside your cast, your wife and I shared one bed, and eagerly enough she spread her legs for me."
Chris jumped to his feet, his face angrier than I'd ever seen it. "Bart, how dare you say such things to your brother? Apologize to Jory and Melodic, immediately! How can you hurt him like this, when already he's hurt enough? Do you hear me? You tell him every word you just said is a lie! A damned lie!"
"It's not a lie," raged Bart. "If you never believe anything I say again, believe me when I say that Melodic was a very cooperative bed companion."
Cindy squealed, then jumped up to slap Melodie's stricken white face. "How dare you do that to Jory?" she screamed. "You know how much he loves you!"
Then Bart was laughing, hysterically laughing. Chris thundered,
"STOP THAT!
Face up to this situation, Bart--the loss of the clipper ship is not a good excuse for trying to destroy your brother's marriage. Where is your honor, your integrity?"
Almost instantly Ba'rt's laughter faded. His eyes turned crystal hard and cold as they surveyed Chris from head to toe. "Don't
you
talk to me about honor and integrity. Where was yours when it came to your sister? Where is it now when you continue to sleep with her? Don't you realize yet that your relationship with her has warped me so that I don't care about anything but seeing the two of you separated? I want my mother to finish out her life as a decent, respectable woman . . . and it's you who keeps her from that!
You,
Christopher,
you!"
His face full of disgust and no remorse, Bart spun on his heel and left the room.
Left us all in the shambles of our Christmas joy.
Eager to do the same, Melodie rose awkwardly, stood trembling with her head bowed, before Cindy yelled, "Did you sleep with Bart? Did you? It isn't fair for you to just say nothing when Jory's heart is breaking."
Melodie's darkly shadowed eyes seemed to sink deeper into her skull even as they grew larger and larger, her pupils dilating as if with fear. "Why can't you leave me alone?" she cried pitifully. "I'm not made of the same iron as the rest of you! I can't take one tragedy after another. Jory lay stricken in the hospital, unable to ever walk or dance again, and Bart was here. I needed someone. He held me, comforted me. I closed my eyes and pretended he was Jory."
Jory fell forward in his chair. I ran to hold him, only to find him gasping so rackingly he couldn't even control his shaking hands. I held him in my arms as Chris tried to stop Melodie from running up the stairs. "Be careful!" he called. "You could fall and lose your baby!"
"I don't care," came back her pitiful wail before she disappeared from sight.
By this time Jory had gained enough control to wipe away his tears and find a weak smile. "Well, now I know," he said in a cracked voice. "I guessed a long time ago that she and Bart had something going on, but I hoped it was only my suspicions working overtime. But I should have known better. Mel can't live without a man beside her, especially in bed ... and I can hardly blame her, can I?"
Stricken to the bone, I began to pick up the wrappings that had been so carefully applied and so ruthlessly ripped off. Like life, and how carefully we tried to maintain our illusions when things were seldom what they had appeared to be.
Soon Jory excused himself, saying he needed to be alone.
"Who could have smashed that wonderful ship?" I whispered. "Cindy helped Jory wrap that gift the last time he touched up the paint, and I was there watching. The ship was carefully put in a special plastic foam shell to hold it upright. It shouldn't have had one crack, one thing broken.
"How can I ever explain what goes on in this house?" answered Chris in a throaty voice full of pain. He looked up to see Bart standing in the doorway, his long legs spread wide, his fists on his hips as he glared at me. In a louder tone Chris addressed Bart. "What's done is done, and I'm sure it's not Jory's fault the clipper ship was broken. He meant well. All along he told us he was putting that ship together for your office mantel."
"I'm sure Jory did mean well," said Bart evenly, his control regained. "But there is my dear little adopted sister who hates me and no doubt wants to punish me for giving her boyfriend what he deserved. Next time it will be
her
I punish."
"Maybe Jory dropped the box," said Joel in a saintly way. I stared at that old man with his glittering weak eyes and waited my opportunity to say what I had to when no one else was around.
"No," denied Bart. "It had to be Cindy. I have to admit my brother has always given me fair treatment, even when I didn't deserve it."
And all the while he said this, I was staring at Joel with his smirky face, his glittery, satisfied eyes.
Just before retiring, I had my chance. We were in a back second-floor hallway. "Joel, Cindy wouldn't have destroyed all Jory's work and ruined Bart's gift. But you like to drive wedges between members of our family. I believe it was
you
who smashed the ship, then rewrapped it."
He said nothing, only put more hatred in his unrelenting stare.
"Why did you come back, Joel?" I shouted. "You claim you hated your father and were happy in your Italian monastery. Why didn't you stay there? Certainly in all those years you made a few friends. You must have known you wouldn't find any here. My mother told me you always hated this house. Now you walk through it as if you owned it."
Still he said nothing.
I followed him into his room and looked around for the first time. Biblical illustrations on his walls. Quotes from the Bible put in cheap frames.
He moved so that he was behind me. I felt his wheezy warm breath on my neck, smelling old and faintly sick. I sensed when he moved his arms he meant to choke me. Startled, I whirled about to find him inches away.
How silently and quickly he could move. "My father's mother was named Corrine," he said in the sweetest possible voice, enough to make me doubt my reasoning. "My sister had the same name, given to her as a form of punishment, a constant reminder to my father of his unfaithful mother, proving to him again and again that no beautiful woman could be trusted-- how right he was."
He was an old man, in his eighties, yet I slapped him, slapped him hard. He staggered backward, then lost his balance and fell to the floor.
"You'll regret that slap, Catherine," he cried with more anger than he'd as yet shown. "Just as much as Corrine regretted all her sins. You, too, will live long enough to regret yours!"
I fled his room, fearing what he said was only too true.
On Christmas night our dinner was served around five in order to give the family plenty of time to prepare for the big event that would begin at ninethirty. Bart wore a glow of happiness. His warm hand reached to cover mine, sending a shock of pleasure through me, for so seldom did he show affection by touching. "If I can't have all my wealth right away, then I should have at least all the prestige due the owner of this house."
I smiled and covered the hand that held mine with my free hand. "Yes, I understand, and we'll do everything possible to see that your party is a huge success."
Joel sat nearby, sending out invisible vibes. He was smiling cynically. "Lord help those fools who deceive themselves," he muttered half under his breath. Bart closed his ears and pretended not to hear, but I was worried. Someone had broken Jory's clipper ship, which had been meant as a reconciliation gift to Bart. It had to be Joel who had heartlessly ruined that ship that Jory had slaved over for months and months. What else would he do?
My eyes met Joel's. I couldn't quite put my finger on how Joel looked at this moment, except sanctimonious. He daintily picked at his food, cutting his fruitcake into tiny morsels that he picked up with his long fingers. These he chewed with intense concentration, using only his front teeth, much as a rabbit ate a carrot.
"I'm going to bed now," announced Joel. "I don't approve of tonight's party, Bart, you might as well know that. Remember what happened at your birthday party, and you should have known better. Again I say it's a waste of good money entertaining people you don't know well enough. I also disapprove of people who drink, who cavort and act wild on a day meant for worship. This day belongs to the Lord and his son. We should all go down on our knees and stay there from dawn until midnight, like we did in my monastery, as we gave silent thanks for just being alive."
Since not one of us said a word, Joel went on. "I know drunken men and women will eventually try to fornicate with someone other than whom they came with. I remember your birthday party and what went on. Sinful modern life makes me realize how pure the world was when I was young. Nothing is the same as it used to be. People knew how to act decently in public then, no matter what they did behind closed doors. Now nobody cares who sees them do what. Women didn't bare their bosoms when I was a boy, nor pull up their skirts for every man who wanted them."
He riveted his cold blue eyes on me, and then on Cindy. "Those who sin, and sin again, always pay dearly, as some here should already know." Next he was staring at Jory meaningfully.
"The old son of a bitch," murmured Cindy, watching him slip out of the room with the same stealth as he had entered.
"Cindy, don't you ever let me hear you say anything like that again!" fired Bart. "Nobody uses obscenities under
my
roof."
"Well, I'll be damned!" flared Cindy. "Just the other day I overheard you calling Joel the same thing. And what's more, Bart Foxworth, I'll call a spade a spade-- even under your roof!"
Bart.
"Everybody continue having fun," said Jory,
guiding his chair toward the elevator. "As for me,
damned if I don't want to turn in my Christian
membership."
"You've never been a Christian to begin with,"
called Bart. "Nobody here goes to church. But there
will come a day in the near future when
everyone
here
will attend church."
Chris stood up and precisely put down his
napkin, fixing Bart and Cindy with commanding eyes.
"I've had enough of this childish quibbling. I'm
surprised that all of you who think you are adults can
revert to children in a wink of the eye."
But Jory was not to be stopped this time. He
wheeled his chair about abruptly, rage flaming his
usually controlled face, flaring wide his nostrils.
"Dad, I'm sorry, but I've got to have my say." He
turned toward Bart, who had risen to his feet. "Now,
you listen to me,
little
brother." His strong hands
released the joy stick to clench into fists. "I believe in
God . . . but I don't believe in religion. Religion is
used to manipulate and punish. Used in a thousand
ways for profit, for even in the church, money is still
the
real
God."
"Bart," I implored, so afraid he'd harm Jory
again, "it's time we all headed upstairs."
Bart had paled. "No wonder you sit there in that
chair if you believe what you just said. You are being
punished by God, just as Joel says."
"Joel," sneered Jory. "Who the hell cares what
an old fool like Joel says? I'm punished because some
stupid idiot wet the sand! God didn't pour down rain
to do that. A garden hose took God's place, and that's
why I'm in this chair and not where I belong. As soon
as possible, I'm leaving here, Bart! I'm forgetting
you're my brother, whom I've always tried to love and
help. I'm not going to try again."
"Hooray for you, Jory!" cried Cindy, jumping
to her feet and applauding.
"STOP!" I yelled, seizing Cindy by the arm
while Chris grabbed her other arm and we dragged her
away from Bart. Still she twisted and fought to free
herself. "You damned freaky hypocrite!" she yelled
back at Bart. "I heard at your birthday party that you
do your share of using the local brothel . . ."
Thank God the elevator door closed behind us
and we were on our way up before Bart could reach
Cindy.
"Learn to keep your mouth shut," said Jory.
"You only make him worse, Cindy--and I regret what
I just said. Did you see his face? I don't think he's
pretending about religion. He's deadly serious. He
seems to truly believe. If Joel is a hypocrite, Bart is
not." Chris fixed his strong regard on both before he
stepped out of the elevator. "Jory, Cindy, you listen to
me carefully. I want you both to do your best tonight
to see that Bart's party is successful. Forget your
enmity, at least for one night. He was a troubled little
boy, and he has grown into a more troubled man. He
needs help, and badly. Not from more sessions with
psychiatrists, but help from those who love him
most--and despite everything, I know you both love
him. Just as his mother and I love him and care what
happens to him. As for Melodie, I visited her before
dinner, and she's not feeling well enough to attend the
party. She wouldn't let me examine her, though I tried
to insist, and she says she feels too big, too clumsy
and won't be coming out where guests can stare at her
enormous size. I think that might be the best solution
for her. But if you would, look in on her and say a few
kind words of encouragement, for that poor girl is
coming apart from worry . . ."
Jory steered his chair down the hall, turning
directly into his room, ignoring Melodie's closed door.
I sighed, as did Chris.
Dutifully Cindy tried to say a few consoling
words to Melodie outside of her locked door before she came prancing back to join Chris and I. "I'm not going to let Melodic spoil my fun. I think*she's acting like a damned selfish fool. As for me, I intend to have the time of my life tonight," said Cindy in parting. "I don't give a damn about Bart and his party except
what pleasure it gives me."
"I'm concerned about Cindy," said Chris when
we were lying on our wide bed, trying to catch a short
nap. "I have the feeling Cindy is not stingy with her
favors."
"Chris, don't you dare say that! Just because we
caught her with that boy Lance doesn't mean she is
loose. She's looking, looking all the time at each
young man she meets, hoping he's the one. If one says
he loves her, she believes because she needs to
believe. Don't you realize Bart has stolen her
confidence? She's afraid she is exactly what Bart
thinks she is. She's torn between being as wicked as
he thinks and being as nice as we want her to be.
Cindy's a beautiful young woman . . . and Bart treats
her like filth."
It had been a long day for Chris. He closed his
eyes and turned on his side to embrace me.
"Eventually Bart will straighten out," he murmured.
"For the first time I'm seeing in his eyes the need to find a compromise. He has the desperate desire to find someone or something to believe in. Someday he will find what he needs, and when he does, he'll be set free
to be the fine man he is under that hateful exterior." Sleep and dream of impossible things, like
harmony in the family, like brothers and a sister who
found love for each other. Dream on, dreamer .. . I heard the grandfather clock down the hall
chiming the hour of seven when we were supposed to
rise from our naps to bathe and dress. I shook Chris
awake and told him to hurry and dress. He stretched,
yawned, lazily got up to shower while I took a quick
tub bath; then he was shaving before donning his
custom-tailored tux. Chris stared at himself in a pier
glass. "Cathy, am I gaining weight?" he asked with
concern.
"No, darling. You look terrif--as Cindy would
say."
"What do
you
say?"
"You grow more handsome with each passing
year." I stepped closer to encircle his waist with my
arms as my cheek rested against his back. "I love you
more each year . . . and even when you are as old as
Joel, I will see you as you are now . . . standing twelve
feet tall, in your shining suit of armor, soon to ride your white unicorn. In your hand you'll carry a twelve-foot spear with a green dragon's head perched
upon its point."
In the mirror I saw his reflection; tears had
come to glisten in his eyes. "After all this time, you
remember," he whispered hoarsely. "After all these
many years . . . '
"As if I could forget . . ."
"But it's been so long ago."
"And today the moon shone at noon," I
murmured, moving to face him and slide my arms up
around his neck, "and a blizzard blew in your unicorn
. . . and I saw to my own delight that you've always
had my respect. You didn't need to earn it." Those two tears trickled slowly down his
cheeks. I kissed them away. "So you forgive me,
Catherine? Say now, while we have the chance, that
you forgive me for putting you through so much hell.
For Bart would have turned out differently if I had
stayed only his uncle and found another wife." I was careful not to smudge his jacket with my
makeup as I rested my cheek over his heart, which I
heard thumpity-thump-thumping. Just as I'd heard it
the first time our love changed and became more than
it should have been. "If I blink my eyes just once, I'm twelve years old again, and you're fourteen. I can see you as you were then . . . but I can't see me. Chris,
why can't I see me?"
His crooked smile was bittersweet. "Because
I've stolen all the memories of what you were and
stored them in my heart. But you haven't said you
forgive me."
"Would I be here, where I am, if I didn't want to
be?"
"I hope and pray not," and I was held, held so
tightly in his arms my ribs ached.
Outside the snow began to fall again. Inside my
Christopher Doll had turned back the clock, and if
there was no magic for Melodie in this house, and
Lance's departure had stolen romance from Cindy,
there was more than enough magic for me when Chris
was there to cast his spell.
At nine-thirty we sat, all ready to stand when
Trevor hurried to open the door. He stood anxiously
looking at his watch, glancing at us with great pride.
Bart, Chris, Jory and myself in our elegant expensive
formal clothes faced the front windows with their
splendid draperies. The towering Christmas tree in the
foyer sparkled with a thousand tiny white lights. It
had taken five people hours to decorate that tree. As I sat there like some middle-aged Cinderella
who had already found her prince and married him
and was caught in the spell of the happy-ever-after,
which wasn't all that perfect, something pulled my
eyes upward. In the shadows of the rotunda where two
knights in full armor stood on pedestals opposite each
other, I saw a dark shadow move. Even in the shade of
that smaller closer knight, I thought I knew who it
was. Joel, who was supposed to be in bed asleep, or
on his knees praying for all our sinning un-Christian
souls.
"Bart," I whispered to my second son, who
moved to stand beside my chair, "wasn't this supposed
to be the special party to reintroduce Joel to all his old
friends?"
"Yes," he whispered back, putting his arm over
my shoulders. "But that was just my excuse. I knew
he wouldn't want to come. The truth of the matter is,
few of his old friends are still alive, although many of
my grandmother's school chums are still around." His
strong fingers bit down into my shoulder's tender
flesh. "You look lovely--like an angel."
Was that a compliment, or a suggestion? He smiled at me cynically, then snatched his
arm away as if it had betrayed him.
I laughed nervously. "Oh, someday when I'm as
old as Joel I suppose I'll take on a dowager's hump
and shuffle my feet along, and when my sinning is
over, I'll put on the Thalo I lost way back when I was
in puberty . . ."
Both Bart and Chris scowled to hear me talk
that way, but I felt good when I saw the shadow of
Joel slink away.
Liveried servants readied the buffet tables as
Bart got up to pace the floor, looking exceptionally
handsome in his black tux with the pleated formal
shirt.
I reached for Jory's hand, squeezed it. "You're
looking just as handsome as Bart," I whispered. "Mom, have you given him a compliment? He
looks great, really great, the very man his father must
have been."
Blushing, I felt ashamed. "No, I haven't said a
word because he seems so devilishly pleased with
himself that I think he'd burst with any praise he
might hear from me."
"Mom, you're wrong. Go on, say to him what
you say to me. You may think I need it more, but I
think he does."
Standing, I strode over to where Bart was peering out onto the drive, which curved gradually downward. "Can't see a single headlight," he gruffly complained. "It's not snowing now. The roads have been cleared. Ours is sprinkled over with gravel;
where the hell are they?"
"I've never seen you look more handsome than
you do tonight, Bart."
He turned to stare into my eyes, then he glanced
at Jory. "More handsome than Jory?"
"Equally as handsome."
Scowling, he turned back to the window. Out
there he saw something to take his mind off of
himself. "Hey--look, here they come!"
I watched the string of headlights in the
distance, heading up the hill. "Get ready, everybody,"
called Bart, giving Trevor an excited gesture to be
ready to swing wide the doors.
Chris strolled beside Jory's chair, which he
guided expertly, as I caught hold of Bart's arm and
went to form a receiving line. Trevor hurried up to
give us all a bright smile.
"I just love parties, I always have, I always will.
Makes the heart beat faster. Makes old bones feel
young again. I can tell it's going to be a jolly smashing
one tonight."
Two or three times Trevor said that--with less
conviction each time, as still not one pair of those
headlights climbed high enough to reach our drive. No
one rang our bell, banged our door knocker.
The musicians were in position under the
rotunda, on a dais that had been constructed especially
for them, centered directly between the curving dual
stairways. They tuned their instruments over and over
again as my feet in their high-heeled fancy slippers
began to ache. I sat again on an elegant chair and
wiggled my shoes off under the folds of my gown,
which was growing heavier and more uncomfortable
by the minute. Eventually Chris sat beside me, and
Bart took the righthand chair, all of us very silent,
almost holding our breaths. Jory had his own special
chair that could buzz him around tirelessly. From
window to window he drove, looking out and
reporting.
I knew that Cindy was upstairs, all dressed and
ready, waiting to be "fashionably" late and impress
everyone when finally she drifted down the stairs. She
had to be growing very impatient.
"They must be coming soon--" Jory said when
the hour reached ten-thirty. "There's lots of banked
snow on the side roads to confuse them . . ." Bart's lips were tight and grim, his eyes stony
cold.
No one said anything. I was afraid to even
speculate on why no one had arrived. Trevor looked
very anxious when he thought we weren't noticing. To give myself something pleasant to think
about, I fixed my eyes on the buffet tables, which
reminded me so much of that first ball I'd seen in the
original Foxworth Hall
Very much like what I was staring at. Red linen tablecloths, silver dishes and bowls.
A fountain spraying champagne. Huge, gleaming,
chafing dishes emitting delicious odors. Heaps and
heaps of food on fancy tiered plates of crystal,
porcelain, gold and silver. At last I could resist no
longer and got up to taste of this and that while Bart
frowned and complained I was ruining the beautiful
designs. I wrinkled my nose his way and handed Chris
a plate full of everything I knew he'd like best. Soon
Jory was helping himself.
Red beeswax bayberry candles burned lower
and lower. Towering gelatin masterpieces began to
sag. Melted cheeses began to toughen, and the heating
sauces thickened. Crepe batter waited to be poured on