Jory was quietly sobbing when I entered his room with the freshly bathed and diapered twins held one in each of my arms. In his hands he loosely held a creamy long sheet of stationery.
"Read this," he choked, putting the paper on the table beside his chair before he reached for his children. When he had them both in his arms, he bowed his face into the soft hair of his son, then his daughter's hair
I picked up the creamy sheets; always bad news on cream-colored paper came from Foxworth Hall.
My dearest darling Jory,
I'm a coward. I've always known that, and hoped you'd never find out. You were always the one with all the strength. I love you, and no doubt will always love you, but I can't live with a man who can never make love to me again.
I look at you in that horrible chair that you've grown to accept, when I cannot accept it, or your handicap. Your parents came to my room and confronted me and urged me to face up to you and say everything I feel. I'm unable to do that, for if I do, you might say or do something that would change my mind, and I've got to leave, or lose my mind.
You see, my love, I already feel half insane from being in this house, this horrible, hateful house with all its deceiving beauty. I lie on my lonely bed and dream of the ballet. I hear the music playing even when it isn't. I've got to go back to where I can hear it play, and if that is ugly and selfish, as I know it is, forgive me, if you can.
Say kind things about me to our children when they are old enough to ask questions about their mother. Say those nice words even if they aren't true, for I know I've failed you just as much as I've failed them. I've given you every reason to hate me, but please don't remember me with hate. Remember me as I used to be when we were younger, and very much in control of our lives.
Don't blame yourself for anything, or blame anyone else for what I have to do. Everything is my own fault. You see, I'm not real, I never was, and I never will be. I can't face up to the kind of cruel reality that destroys lives and leaves behind broken dreams. Then, too, remember this: I'm the fantasy you helped create out of your desire and my own.
So farewell, my love, my first and sweetest love, and sadly perhaps my only true love. Find someone rare like your mother who can take my place. She's the one who gave you the ability to cope with reality, no matter how harsh.
God would have been kind if he had given me your kind of mother.
Yours regretfully, Mel
The note fell from my hand, fluttering its pathetic certain way to the carpet. Both Jory and I stared at it lying there, so sad--and so final.
"It's over, Mom," he said tonelessly, his voice deep and gruff. "What began when I was twelve and she was eleven, all over. I built my life around her, thinking she'd last until we were old. I gave her the best I had to offer, and still it wasn't enough once the glamour was gone."
How could I tell him that Melodie wouldn't have lasted even if he was still on stage dancing. Something in her resented his strength, his innate ability to cope with situations beyond her ability to comprehend.
I shook my head. No. I was being unfair. "I'm sorry, Jory, so terribly sorry." I didn't say,
perhaps you'll be better off without her.
"I'm sorry, too," he whispered, refusing to meet my eyes. "What woman will want me now?"
Perhaps he would never perform sexually again in the normal way, and I knew he needed someone in the bed with him during all those long, lonely nights. I could tell from his morning face that the nights were the worst part of his life, leaving him feeling isolated, vulnerable emotionally, as well as physically helpless. He was like me, needing arms to hold me safe during the darkness, wanting kisses on my face to put me to sleep, to wake me up, to put over me a safe parasol of love.
"Last night I heard the wind blowing," he confided to me as the twins sat in their highchairs and smeared their faces with warm, mushy cereal. "I woke up. I thought I heard Mel breathing beside me, but there was nothing. I saw the birds happily building their nests, heard them chirping to greet the new day, and then I saw her note. I knew without reading what was inside, and I went on thinking about the birds, and all their love songs suddenly turned into only territorial rights." His voice broke again as he lowered his head to hide his face. "I've heard that geese, once mated, never mate again, and I keep seeing Melodie as the swan, loyal forever, no matter what the circumstances."
"Darling, I know, I know," I soothed, stroking his dark curls. "But love can come again, you hold onto that--and you're not alone."
He nodded, saying, "Thanks for always being here when I need you. Thank Dad for me, too . . ."
Brusquely, fearing I'd cry as well, I put my arms about him. "Jory, Melodie is gone, but she's left you with a son and a daughter, be grateful for that. Because she did leave you, that makes them all yours now. She walked out not only on you, but also on her own children. You can divorce her and use your strength to help your children develop your own kind of courage and determination. You'll manage without her, Jory, and as long as you need us, you have your parents' willing help."
And all the time I was thinking that Melodie had deliberately withdrawn from her own children in order to make the break easier; she hadn't allowed herself to love them, or them to love her. Her parting gift of love to her childhood sweetheart was his own children.
Jory brushed the tears from his eyes and tried to grin. When he did it was full of irony.
All of a sudden Bart was taking business trips, flying off to return in a few days, never staying away more than two or three days, as if afraid that during his absence as he wheeled and dealed we would run away with his fortune. As he put it, "I have to keep on top of things. Can't trust anyone more than I trust myself."
He had just happened to be gone the day that Melodie slipped out of Foxworth Hall and left that pitiful note for Jory to find on his night table. Bart's expression didn't change when he came home and found Melodie's chair at the dining table empty. "Upstairs moping again?" he asked indifferently, indicating her chair, which was a constant reminder of her absence.
"No, Bart," I answered when Jory refused to look his way or even answer. "Melodie decided she wanted to resume her career, and she left, leaving Jory a note."
His left eyebrow quirked upward cynically; then he flashed Jory a glance, but not one word to say he was sorry to find her gone, or one word of condolence to his brother.
Later, when Jory was upstairs and I was changing diapers, Bart came in and stood at my side. "Too bad I was in New York at the time. I would have enjoyed seeing Jory's expression when he read her note. By the way, where is it? I'd like to read what she had to say."
I turned to stare at him For the first time it occurred to me that Melodie might have arranged to meet him in New York. "No, Bart, you will never read that note and I hope to God you had nothing to do with her decision to go."
Angry, his face reddened. "I went on a business trip! I haven't said two words to Melodie since Christmas. And as far as I'm concerned, it's good riddance."
In some ways it was better without Melodie always sitting around moodily, shadowing the rooms with her dreary depression. I made it a practice to visit Jory just before bedtime, tucking him in, opening his window, dimming the lights and seeing he had water where he could reach it. My kiss on his cheek tried to substitute for a wife's kiss.
Now that Melodie was gone, I soon found out that she had helped a little just by getting up early once in a while to change and feed the babies. She'd even bothered to diaper them several times a day.
Often Bart drifted into the nursery, as if irresistibly drawn, and stared down at the tiny twins, who had learned how to smile and had found out to their delight that those waving shadowy things were their own feet and their own small hands. They reached for the mobiles of pretty colorful birds, struggled to pull them down and put them in their mouths.
"They are kind of cute," Bart commented in a musing way that pleased me, even doing a little to help by handing me the baby oil and talcum. Unfortunately, just when the twins almost had him won over, Joel strode into the nursery and scowled down at the beautiful babies, and all the kindness and sympathy growing in Bart vanished completely, leaving him standing beside me looking guilty.
Joel gave the twins one hard, quick glance before he turned away his offended eyes. "Just like the first twins, the evil ones," muttered Joel. "Same blond hair and blue eyes . . . no good will come of this pair either."
"What do you mean by that?" I raged. "Cory and Carrie never harmed anyone! They were the ones who were harmed. They suffered what was inflicted on them by your own sister, mother and father, Joel. Don't you ever dare to forget that."
With silence Joel answered before he left the room, taking Bart with him.
In mid-June, Cindy flew home to stay the summer. She made determined efforts to keep her rooms neater, hanging up her own clothes, which she used to drop on the floor. She helped me by changing the twins and holding their bottles as she rocked them to sleep. It was sweet to see her sitting in the rocker, a baby in the crook of each arm, struggling to hold two bottles at the same time while she wore baby doll pajamas, her lovely long legs bare and tucked under her. She seemed very much a child herself. She bathed and showered so often I thought she'd shrivel into a dried prune.
One evening she came from her luxurious bath and dressing room looking radiantly fresh and alive, smelling like an exotic flower garden. "I love twilight," she gushed, twirling around and around. "Just adore strolling the woods when the moon is on the rise."
By this time we were all seated on our favorite terrace, sipping drinks. Bart pricked up his ears and glared at her. "Who's waiting for you in the woods?"
"Not who, dear brother, but what." She turned her head to smile at him in an innocent, charming way. "I'm going to be nice to you, Bart, no matter how nasty you are to me. I've decided I cannot win friends by tossing out rude and nasty remarks."
He glared suspiciously. "I still think you're meeting some boy in the woods."
"Thank you, brother Bart, for only thinking of punishing me with nasty suspicions. I expected more-- and worse. There's a boy in South Carolina that I've fallen madly for, and he's a nature lover. He's taught me how to appreciate all that money can't buy. I adore sunrises and sunsets. When rabbits run, I follow. Together we catch rare butterflies and he mounts them.
We picnic in the woods, swim in the lakes. Since I'm not allowed to have a boyfriend here, I'm going to stand alone at the top of a hill and try just strolling down. It's fun to challenge gravity and try not to run all breathless and out of control."
"By what name do you call gravity? Bill, John, Mark or Lance?"
"I'm not going to let you annoy me this time," she said arrogantly. "I like to stare up at the sky, count the stars, find the constellations, watch the moon play hide-and-seek. Sometimes the man in the moon winks at me, and I wink back. Dennis has taught me how to stand perfectly still and absorb the feel of the night. Why, I'm seeing wonders I didn't even know existed because I'm in love--madly, passionately,
ridiculously, insanely in love!"
Envy flashed through his dark eyes before he growled, "What about Lance Spalding? I thought you felt that way about him. Or did I ruin his pretty face permanently so you can't bear to look at him?"
Cindy paled. "Unlike you, Bart Foxworth, Lance is beautiful inside and out, like Daddy, and I do still love him, and Dennis, too."
Bart's frown deepened. "I know all about your nature loving! You want to sprawl on your back and spread your legs for some village idiot--and I won't have it!"
"What's going on here?" asked Chris, appearing dumbfounded to come back from the telephone and find all the peace gone.
Cindy jumped to her feet, took her stance and put her hands on her hips. She glared down into Bart's face, struggling to hold fast to that adult control she was determined to have with him. "Why do you always presume the worst about me? I just want to walk in the moonlight, and the village is ten miles away. What a pity you don't understand what it's like to be human."
Her answer and her glare seemed to infuriate him more. "You're not my sister, just a smart-ass little bitch in heat--the same as your mother!"
This time it was Chris who jumped up from the table and slapped Bart hard. Bart drew back and raised his fists, as if ready to punch Chris in the jaw-- when I jumped to my feet and placed myself in front of Chris. "No, don't you dare ever hit the man who's tried to be the best father possible! If you do, Bart, you and I are through forever!" That was enough for him to turn his dark, fiery eyes on me, so furious his look could have started a blaze.
"Why can't you see that little whore for what she is? You both see everything wrong about me, but you close your eyes to the sins of your favorites! She's nothing but a tramp, a goddamned tramp." He froze, his eyes wide and startled.
He'd taken the Lord's name in vain. He looked around to see Joel, who for once was out of sight and hearing. "You see, Mother, what she does to me? She corrupts--and in my own home, too."
Looking at Bart disapprovingly, Chris sat down again. Cindy disappeared into the house. I stared forlornly after her, as Chris spoke harshly, confronting Bart. "Can't you see that Cindy is doing her best to please you? She's been trying since she came home to do her utmost to appease you, but you won't let her. How can you take a stroll in these lonely woods as anything but innocent? From now on, I want you to treat her with respect--for if you don't you may well drive her into doing something rash. Losing Melodie is quite enough for one summer."
It was just as if Chris had no voice and Bart had no ears, from all the effect those words had. Chris ended by giving Bart an even harder look and more reprimanding words before Chris stood and
disappeared inside the house. I suspected he would follow Cindy upstairs and do what he could to comfort her.
Alone with my second son, I tried to
rationalize, as I always did. "Bart, why do you talk so ugly to Cindy?" I began. "She's at a very vulnerable age and is a decent human being who needs to be appreciated. She's not a tramp, a whore or a bitch. She's a lovely young girl who is very thrilled to be pretty and attracting so much attention from the boys. That doesn't mean she's giving in to every one. She has scruples, honor. That one episode with Lance Spalding has not corrupted her."
"Mother, she was corrupted long ago, only you don't want to believe that. Lance Spalding wasn't the first."
"How dare you say that?" I asked, really enraged. "What kind of man are you, anyway? You sleep with whom you please, do what you please, but she's supposed to be an angel with a halo and wings on her back. Now you go upstairs and apologize to Cindy!"
"An apology is something she'll never get from me." He sat down to finish his meal. "The servants talk about Cindy. You don't hear them, for you're too busy with those two babies you can't leave alone. But I hear them as they clean and dust. Your Cindy is a red-hot number. The trouble is you think she's an angel. You think that just because she looks like one."
I sank down to lean my elbows heavily on the glass-topped wrought-iron white table, feeling overwhelmingly tired, just as Jory did, and he hadn't said one word for or against Cindy. To be for any length of time around Bart was so exhausting; the tension of saying one wrong thing kept you wired tight.
My eyes fixed on the crimson roses that were this evening's centerpiece. "Bart, has it ever occurred to you that Cindy may feel she's been contaminated, so that now she doesn't care? And certainly you don't give her any reason to value her self-esteem."
"She's a wanton, loose 'slut." Said with absolute conviction.
My voice turned as uncompromising as his. "Apparently from what I overhear when the servants whisper, you are drawn to the very type of woman you condemn."
Standing, he threw down his napkin and stalked purposefully into the house. "I'll fire every damn one who gossips about me!"
I sighed. Soon we wouldn't be able to hire any servants if he .kept hiring and firing.
"Mom, I'm going to hit the sack," said Jory. "This pleasant evening meal on the terrace has turned out just as I could have predicted."
That very evening Bart fired every servant but Trevor, who seldom said anything except to me or Chris. If Trevor had left every time Bart fired him, he'd have been gone long ago. Trevor had an understanding way of knowing just when to believe Bart was serious. Never, never did he rebuke Bart, nor did he meet Bart's eyes squarely. Perhaps because of this, Bart thought he had Trevor cowed. I thought Trevor forgave Bart, because he understood and pitied him
I headed for Cindy's room, meeting Chris as he came down. "She's very upset. Try to calm her down, Cathy. She's talking about leaving here and never coming back."
Cindy was face down on her bed. Small grunts and groans came from her throat. "He ruins
everything," she wailed. "I never knew my own father and mother-- and Bart wants to chase me away from you and Daddy," she sobbed as I perched on the side of her bed. "Now he's determined to spoil my summer, drive me away like he did Melodie."
I held her slight body in my arms and
comforted her as best I could, thinking I'd have to send her away to keep her safe from being hurt again by Bart. Where could I send Cindy and not injure her feelings, which didn't need another cruel blow? I went to bed thinking about that, as Cindy escaped the house to meet a boy from the village.
I was to hear about this later.
As Bart had predicted, Cindy's nature-loving experience did have a name Victor Wade. And while I lay on my bed, and Chris slept beside me, pondering what to do with Cindy, and still keep her love, how to keep Bart from being his worst self, our Cindy sneaked out of the house and went with Victor Wade to Charlottesville.
In Charlottesville Cindy had a glorious time, dancing with Victor Wade until she wore holes in the thin soles of her fragile, sparkling sandals with the four-inch glass heels (really only lucite and not as heavy as glass). Then Victor, true to his word, drove back toward Foxworth Hall. Near one of the roads leading to our hill, he parked and drew Cindy into his arms.
"I've fallen in love," he whispered huskily, raining kisses expertly on her face, behind her ears, traveling down her neck to end up on her breast that he bared. "I've never met a girl who was half the fun you are. And you were right. They don't grow 'em better in Texas .. ."
Half drunk on too much wine, intoxicated, too, with the expertise of his foreplay, Cindy's efforts to resist his lovemaking were weak, ineffectual. Soon her own passionate nature was responding, and eagerly she helped him to undress as he unzipped her dress and soon had it off, along with everything else. He fell upon her--and that's when Bart showed up.
Bellowing like an enraged bull, Bart rushed the parked car, catching Cindy and Victor in the very act of copulating.
Seeing their naked bodies with arms and legs entwined on the back seat confirmed all his suspicions and enraged him more. Bart threw open the door and yanked Victor out by the ankles, forcefully dragging him off the top of Cindy so he fell face downward upon the rough gravel of the roadside.
Not giving the boy a chance to recover, Bart attacked, using his fists brutally.
Screaming her anger, disregarding her nudity, Cindy hurled her dress directly into Bart's face, blinding him momentarily. This gave Victor the chance to jump to his feet and deliver his own blow that momentarily gave Bart pause, but already Victor's nose was bleeding and he had a black eye.
In the moonlight his nakedness seemed blue in Cindy's eyes. "And Bart was so ruthless, Momma! So awful! He seemed like a madman--especially when Victor managed to smash a good right hook into his jaw. Then he tried to kick Bart in the groin. It did hit him there, but not hard enough. Bart doubled up, cried out, then rushed Victor with so much fierce anger that I was scared he'd kill him! He came out of that pain so fast, Momma, so fast--and I'd always heard that stopped a man cold." Cindy sobbed with her head on my lap.
"He was like the Devil straight from hell, screaming abuse at Victor, using all the obscene words he never wants me to use. He knocked Victor down, then beat him into unconsciousness. Then he came at me! I was terrified he'd batter my face and break my nose and make me ugly, like, he's always threatened to do. Somehow I'd managed to pull on that dress, but the zipper was wide open down the back. He grabbed me by the shoulders, shook me so hard the dress fell to my ankles and I was naked--but he didn't look to see anything. He kept his eyes on my face as he slapped one cheek and then the other and my head was rocked from side to side, until I felt dizzy and faint. My head was reeling before he picked me up like a sack of grain, threw me over his shoulder and took off through the woods, leaving Victor lying on the ground.
"It was awful, Momma, so humiliating! To be carried like that, as if I were cattle! I cried all the way, pleading with Bart to call an ambulance in case Victor was seriously hurt . . . but he wouldn't listen. I begged him to put me down and let me cover myself, but he ordered me to shut up or else he'd do something terrible. Then he took me to--"
She cut off her words abruptly, staring before her as if mesmerized by fear.
"Where did he take you, Cindy?" I asked, feeling sick, as if her humiliation was mine, and so furious with Bart, feeling sorry for her shocking plight. At the same time I was so angry that she'd brought this upon herself by disobeying and disregarding everything I'd tried to teach her.
In a small, weak voice, with her head lowered so her long hair fell to hide her face, she finished, "Just home, Mom . . . just home."
There was more to it, but she refused to tell me anything else. I wanted to scold her, to chastise her, remind her again that she knew all about Bart and his fierce temper, but she was too traumatized to hear more.
I got up to leave her room. "I'm taking away all your privileges, Cindy. I'll send up a servant to take out your telephone so you can't call one of your boyfriends to help you escape. I've heard your side of the story now, and Bart just this morning told me his side. I don't agree with his method of punishing you or that boy. He was much too brutal, and for that, I apologize. However, it seems you are very free with your sexual favors. You can't deny that any longer, for I've seen you with my own eyes when that boy Lance was here. It hurts to know that you've heeded so little of what I've tried to teach you. I realize it's hard to be young and different from your peers, but still I was hoping you'd wait until you knew how to handle intimate relationships. I couldn't bear for an unknown man to lay a finger on me--much less take me totally--and you just met that boy, Cindy! A complete stranger who might have hurt you!"
Her pitiful pretty face lifted. "Momma, help me!"
"Haven't I done my best to help you all your life? Listen to me, Cindy, for once really listen. The best part of loving comes with learning to know a man, by allowing him to know you as a person before you begin to think about sex--you don't pick up the first man you meet!"