She stood watching the sun play on Jory's waving blue-black hair. He hadn't shaved, and that made him look twice as virile, although not as fresh. Suddenly he looked up and noticed her overlong stare. "I apologize for the way I look, Toni," he said as if embarrassed. "I was very anxious to be up and busy this morning before the rain sets in and spoils another day for me. I hate the days when I can't stay outside."
Still she said nothing, only stood there, the peekaboo sun glorifying her beautifully tanned skin. His eyes drifted over her clean, fresh face even before he briefly dropped his eyes and took in the rest of her. "Thank you for the daisies. They're not supposed to tell. What is the secret?"
Swooping down, she picked up a few sketches he'd tossed at the wastebasket and missed. Before she could drop them in the can, she gave the subjects her attention, and then her lovely face flushed. "You've been sketching me," she said in a low tone.
"Throw them away!" he said sharply. "They're no good. I can paint flowers and hills and make fairly good landscapes, but portraits are so damned difficult. I can never capture the essence of you."
"I think these are very good," she objected, studying them again. "You shouldn't throw away your sketches. May I keep them?"
Carefully she tried to flatten out the wrinkles, and then she was placing them on a table and stacking heavy books upon them. "I was hired to take care of you and the twins. But you never ask me to do anything for you. And your mother likes to play with the twins in the mornings, so that gives me extra time, time enough to do many things for you. What can I do for you?"
The brush dripping with gray colored the bottoms of clouds before he paused and turned his chair so he could look at her. A wry smile moved his lips. "Once I could have thought of something. Now I suggest you leave me alone. Crippled men don't play very exciting games, I'm sorry to say."
Appearing weary with defeat, she crumpled down on a long, comfortable chaise. "Now you're saying to me what Bart does all the time--`Go away,' he shouts, 'Leave me alone,' he yells. I didn't think you'd be the same."
"Why not?" he asked with his own bitterness. "We're brothers, half-brothers. We both have our hateful moments--and it's better to leave us alone then."
"I thought he was the most wonderful man alive," she said sadly. "But I guess I can't trust my own judgment anymore. I believed Bart wanted to marry me--now he yells and orders me out of sight. Then he calls me back and begs forgiveness. I want to leave this house and never come back--but something holds me here, keeps whispering that it's not time for me to go . . ."
"Yes," said Jory, beginning to paint again with careful strokes, tipping the board to make his washes run and create "accidental" blendings that sometimes worked out beautifully. "That's Foxworth Hall. Once you enter its portals, you seldom are seen again."
"Your wife escaped." "So shd did; more credit to her than I believed when it happened."
"You sound so bitter."
"I'm not bitter, I'm sour, like a pickle. I enjoy my life. I am caught between Heaven and Hell in a kind of purgatory where ghosts of the past roam the hallways at night. I can hear the clank and clonk of their restraining chains, and I can only be grateful they never appear, or perhaps the silent tread of my rubber-rimmed wheels scares them off."
"Why do you stay if you feel that way?"
Jory shoved away from his painting table, then riveted his dark eyes on her. "What the hell are you doing here with me? Go to your lover. Apparently you like the way he treats you, or easily enough you could escape. You aren't chained here with memories, with hopes or dreams that don't come true. You aren't a Foxworth, nor a Sheffield. This Hall holds no chains to bind you."
"Why do you hate him?"
"Why don't you hate him?"
"I do sometimes."
"Trust your sometime judgment and get out. Get out before you are made, by osmosis, into one of us." "And what are you?"
Jory drove his chair to the rim of the flagstones, where the flowerbeds began, and stared off toward the mountains. "Once I was a dancer, and I never thought beyond that. Now that I can't dance, I have to presume that I am nothing of importance to anyone. So I stay, thinking I belong here more than I belong anywhere else."
"How can you say what you just did? Don't you believe you're important to your parents, your sister, and most of all to your children?"
"They don't really need me, do they? And my parents have each other. My children have them. Bart has you. Cindy has her career. That leaves me the odd man out."
Toni stood, stepped behind his chair and began to massage his neck with skillful fingers. "Does your back still bother you at night?"
"No," he said in a hoarse voice. But it did, I knew it did. Hidden behind the shrubs, I went right on snipping roses, sensing they didn't know I was there.
"If ever your back aches again, buzz for me and I'll give you a massage to take away the pain."
Whirling his chair around in a full about-face, Jory confronted her fiercely. She had to jump back out of the way or be knocked down. "So, it seems if you can't get one brother, you'll settle for the other--the crippled one who can't possibly resist your many charms? Thanks, but no thanks. My mother will massage my aching back."
Slowly she drifted away, turning twice to look back at him. She didn't know that she left him staring after her with his heart in his eyes. She closed a French door behind her quietly. I stopped cutting roses for the breakfast table and sat on the grass. Behind me the twins were playing "church."
Following Chris's instructions, we were doing what we could to increase their vocabulary daily, and our instructions seemed to be working wonders.
"And the Lord said to Eve, go forth from this place." Darren's childish voice was full of giggles. I turned to look.
Both children had removed their brief sunsuits and taken off small white sandals. Deirdre stuck a leaf on her brother's small male organ, then stared down at her own private place. She frowned. "Dare . . . what's sinning?"
"Like running," answered her brother. "Bad when you're barefoot.
They both giggled and jumped up to run toward me. I caught them in my arms and held their soft, warm, nude bodies close, raining kisses on their faces. "Have you eaten your breakfast?"
"Yes, Granny Toni fed us grapefruit, which we hate. We ate everything but the eggs. Don't like eggs."
That was Deirdre who did most of the talking for Darren, just as Carrie had been Cory's voice most of the time.
"Mom--how long have you been there?" called Jory. He sounded annoyed, a bit embarrassed.
Rising, I held the naked twins in my arms, and headed for Jory. "I found Toni in the pool teaching the twins how to swim, so I took over and asked her to look in on you. They're doing very nicely in the water now, paddling all around with confidence. Why didn't you join us this morning?"
"Why did you keep yourself hidden?"
"Just snipping my morning roses, Jory. You know I do that every day. It's the one thing that makes this house cozy, the cut flowers I put in every room the first thing in the mornings." Playfully I stuck a red rose behind his ear. Quickly he snatched it away and stuffed it in with the daisies Toni had brought him.
"You heard Toni and me, didn't you?"
"Jory, when I am outdoors in August knowing September isn't far away, I just grab each moment and value it for what it is. The rose scent is in my nostrils, making me think I am in Heaven, or in Paul's garden. He had the most beautiful gardens. All kinds. He divided sections into those that held English gardens, Japanese, Italian--"
"I've heard all that before!" he said impatiently. "I asked if you heard us?"
"Yes, as a matter of fact, I did hear every fascinating thing, and when I had the chance, I peeked above the roses to watch the two of you."
He scowled very much like Bart as I moved to put the twins on their feet, then gave their bare bottoms small spanks, telling them to find Toni, who would help them dress. They scuttled away, little naked dolls.
I sat down to smi
le at Jory, who glowered at me accusingly. He seemed even more like Bart when he looked angry. "Really, Jory, I didn't mean to eavesdrop. I was there before either of you came out." I paused and looked at his frowning face. "You love Toni, don't you?"
"I don't love her! She's Bart's! Damned if I want to take Bart's leavings again."
"Again?"
"Come off it, Mom. You know as well as I do the real reason why Mel left this house. He made it plain enough, and so did she that Christmas morning when the clipper ship was mysteriously broken. She'd have stayed on here forever if Bart had kept his position as replacement for me. I think she fell in love with him inadvertently, while trying to satisfy her need for me and the sex we shared. I used to hear her crying in the night. I'd lie on my bed, wanting to go to her but unable to move, feeling sorry for her, sorrier for myself. It was hell then. It's hell now. A different kind of hell."
"Jory--what can I do to help?"
He leaned forward, meeting my eyes with such intensity I was reminded of Julian and the many ways in which I had thwarted him
"Mom, despite all this house represents to you, it's grown to feel like home to me. The halls and doorways are wide. There's the elevator to take me up and down. There're the swimming pool, the terraces, the gardens and the woods. Actually, a kind of, paradise on earth-- but for a few flaws. I used to think I couldn't wait to get away. Now I don't want to go, and I don't really want to worry you any more than you already are, yet I must speak."
I waited with dread to hear about those few "flaws."
"When I was a child, I believed the world was full of many wonders, and miracles could still happen, and blind men would one day see, and the lame would one day walk, and so forth. Thinking like that made all the unfairness I saw all around, all the ugliness, much better. I think the ballet kept me from fully growing up, so I maintained the idea that miracles could truly happen if you believed in them enough-- like that song `When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.' And in the ballet miracles do happen all the time, so I stayed childlike even after I became an adult. I still believed that in the outside world, the real world, everything would work out fine in the long run if I believed enough. Mel and I had that in common. There's something about ballet that keeps you virginal, so to speak. You see no evil, hear no evil, though I won't mention speak no evil. You know what I mean, I'm sure, for it was your world, too." He paused and glanced .up at the threatening sky.
"In that world I had a wife who loved me. In the outside world, the real world, she quickly found a replacement lover. I hated Bart for taking her when I needed her most. Then I'd hate Mel for allowing him to use her as just another way to get back at me. He's still doing it, Mom. And I wouldn't trouble you with what's going on if I wasn't sometimes afraid for my life. Afraid for my children."
I listened to him, trying not to show shock as he spoke of all he'd never hinted at before.
"Remember the parallel bars I exercise on, in order to use the back and leg braces? Well, somebody scraped the metal so that when I slip my hands along the rails I get metal splinters in both hands. Dad dug them out for me and made me promise not to tell you."
I shivered, shrank inside. "What else, Jory? That's not all, I can tell from the way you look."
"Nothing much, Mom. Just little things to make my life miserable, like insects in my coffee, tea and milk. My sugar bowl filled with salt, and my salt cellar full of sugar . . . dumb tricks, childish pranks that could be dangerous. Tacks appear in my bed, in the seat of my chair . . . oh, it's Halloween time all the time in this house for me. At times I want to laugh, it's so silly. But when I slip on a shoe and there's a nail in the toe that I can't feel, and it gives me an infection because my leg circulation isn't top-notch, it's not a laughing matter. It could cost me a leg. I waste so much time looking everything over before I use it, like my razor with new blades that are suddenly rusty."
He looked around as if to see if Joel or Bart were in earshot, and even though he saw nothing, for I looked, too, still his voice lowered to a whisper. "Yesterday was very warm, remember? You yourself opened three of my windows so I'd have fresh, cool breezes--then the wind shifted and blew from the north, and it turned dramatically cold. You came on the run to close my windows, to cover me with another blanket. I fell back to sleep. Half an hour later I woke up from a dream of being at the North Pole. The windows--all six of them--were wide open. Rain blew in and wet my bed. But that wasn't the worst of it. My blankets had been removed. I turned to ring for someone to come to my assistance. My buzzer was gone. I sat up and reached for my chair. It wasn't where I usually put it, right beside my bed. For a moment I panicked. Then, because I'm much stronger now in my arms, I lowered myself to the floor, used my arms to pull myself over to a regular chair that I could shove near the windows. Once I was on the chair seat, I could have easily pulled the windows down. But the first one refused to budge. I moved the chair to another window, and that wouldn't close any more than the first one would. Stuck with the fresh coat of paint applied a few weeks ago. I knew theft it was useless to try the other four and brave that fiercely cold wet rain and wind, for my leverage wasn't right, even if my arms are strong. Yet, foolhardy as you often say I am, I persisted. No luck. That's when I put myself on the floor again and made my way to the door. It was locked. I dragged myself along by pulling on furniture legs until I was in the closet, and there I pulled down a winter coat, covered myself and fell asleep."
What had happened to my face? It felt so numb that I couldn't move my lips and speak, nor could I manage to show shock. Jory stared at me hard.
"Mom, are you listening? Are you thinking? Now . . . don't try to comment until I complete this story. As I just said, I fell asleep in the closet, on the floor, soaking wet. When I woke up, I was back on my bed. A dry bed, the sheet and blankets covered me, and I was wearing a fresh pair of pajamas." He paused dramatically and met my horrified eyes.
"Mom ... if someone in this house wanted me to catch pneumonia and die, would that someone have put me back in bed and covered me up? Dad wasn't home to pick me up and carry me, and certainly you don't have the strength to do that."
"But," I whispered, "Bart doesn't hate you that much. He doesn't hate you at all . . ."
"Perhaps' it was Trevor who found me, and not Bart. But somehow I don't think Trevor is young and strong enough to lift me. Still, somebody here hates me," Jory stated firmly. "Somebody who would like to see me gone. I've thought about this considerably and come to the conclusion that it had to have been Bart who found me in the closet and put me back to bed. Has this occurred to you: if you, Dad, I and the twins were out of the way, Bart would have our money as well as his own?"
"But he's already filthy rich! He doesn't need more!"
Jory spun his chair so that it faced east, staring at the faded sun. "I've never really been afraid of Bart before. I have always pitied him and wanted to help him. I think about taking the twins and leaving with you and Dad .. . but that's a coward's way. If Bart did open those windows to let in the rain and wind, he later changed his mind and came back to rescue me. I think about the clipper ship and how it was broken, and certainly Bart couldn't have been responsible for that, not when he wanted it so much. And I think about Joel, whom you think was responsible--and again I think about who influences Bart more than anyone here. Someone is taking Bart and twisting him and turning back the clock, so he's again like that tormented ten-year-old kid who wanted you and his grandmother to die in fire and be redeemed . . ."
"Please, Jory, you said you'd never mention that period in our lives again."
Silence came, stretched out interminably before he went on. "The fish in my aquarium died last night. Their air filter was turned off. The temperature control smashed." Once again he paused, watching my face closely. "Do you believe any of what I've just told you?'
I fixed my eyes on the blue-misted mountains with their soft, rounded tops to remind me of ancient, gigantic, dead virgins laid out in jagged rows
, their upthrust, moss-covered bosoms all that remained. My eyes lifted to the sky, deeply blue, and the featherbrushed storm clouds with wisps of shimmering gold clouds behind them, heralding a better day.
Under such skies as this, surrounded by the same mountains, Chris, Cory, Carrie and I had faced terrors while God watched. My fingers nervously wiped away those invisible cobwebs, trying to find the right words to say.
"Mom, as much as I hate to say this, I think we have to give up on Bart. We can't trust his now-andthen love for us. He needs professional help again. Truthfully, I've always believed he had a great deal of love within him that he didn't know how to release or express. And here I am, now thinking he's beyond saving. We can't drive him out of his own home-- unless we want him declared insane and put in an institution. I don't want that to happen, and I know you don't. So, all we can do is leave. And isn't it funny--now I don't want to go, even when my life is threatened. I've grown accustomed to this house; I love it here, so I risk my life, the lives of all of us. The intrigue of what might happen today keeps me from ever being bored. Mom, the worst thing in my life is boredom."
I wasn't half listening to Jory.
My eyes widened as I saw Deirdre and Darren following Joel and Bart to the small chapel, which had its own outside door that could be reached from the gardens. They disappeared inside, and the door closed.
I forgot my basket of cut roses and jumped to my feet. Where was Toni? Why wasn't she protecting the twins from Bart, from Joel? Then I felt foolish, for why should she feel that Bart or Joel was a threat to two such small, innocent children? Still I said a hasty goodbye to Jory, told him not to worry, I'd be back in a few minutes with Darren and Deirdre so we could all eat lunch together. "Jory, you will be all right if I leave you alone for a few moments?"
"Sure, Mom. Go after my kids. I spoke to Trevor this morning, and he gave me a batteryoperated two-way intercom. Trevor can be fully trusted.
Believing wholeheartedly in our butler's loyalty, I sped after the foursome already in the chapel.