The Shadows of Foxworth Read online

  “Hey,” he called back. He reached for my hand. “C’mon upstairs with me. I want to tell you all about my day at the offices.”

  He looked very excited, but what made my heart cringe a little was how pleased he looked as well.

  “Yvon,” I said as he closed his hand around mine.

  He tugged me to follow him up quickly.

  “She’ll yell at you for bringing me into your room,” I warned.

  “She won’t be back for a while. Don’t pay attention to that, anyway.”

  I followed him in and first realized how good his new dark-blue business suit with his new shoes, tie, and shirt looked on him. He had never worn a suit in France.

  Before I could tell him anything, he rattled on with his great excitement.

  “Wait until you see our offices. And the view, amazing! We’re very high up and can see practically the whole city of Richmond. I like Mr. Simon, too. He’s very patient and nice to work with. Before the day ended, I understood all the major concepts in real estate, and I even sat in on a discussion involving a bidding on a new property. There are seven other young men working there, two for nearly five years and the rest three or four. All were very nice to me. I think they know I’ll eventually have more to say and do, and one day…”

  He paused.

  “What’s wrong? You look a little upset. Didn’t you have a good day with the tutor?”

  I skipped all the minor things about Mr. Donald that I hated and went right to the incident. He stared at me and then sat on his bed.

  “Why would she bring such a man here?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know what he’s really like,” I said. “He’s returning tomorrow.”

  “Like hell he is,” Yvon said, and stood up as if he had just sat on hot coals. He pushed up his sleeve and looked at a watch.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “She told Mr. Simon to have one for me at the offices. It’s not very expensive, but it’s expensive enough. My first watch,” he said, proudly showing it to me. “Okay, she should be home any minute. You wait in your room.”

  “But…”

  “Just do what I say,” he said.

  I nodded. “You know, Aunt Pauline has been shut up in her room all day. The twins told me Aunt Effie left orders. She’s like a prisoner. It’s a horrible way to treat your own sister.”

  “One crisis at a time,” Yvon said. He looked very angry again. “Let’s go. You go to your room for now.”

  We walked out and stopped at my door.

  “I’ll come get you when I need you,” he said. I watched him go to the stairway and then went into my room to wait.

  Less than twenty minutes later, I heard him come running up the stairs. “C’mon,” he said after opening the door. “She doesn’t believe what I’m telling her. Maybe she doesn’t want to believe it.”

  “She won’t believe me, either, Yvon,” I said, walking to the door. I felt myself trembling.

  “You don’t lie, Marlena. If she can’t see that, she’s stupid.”

  We walked down and went into the sitting room, where Aunt Effie waited. The twins left just before we stepped in. I had the feeling she had interrogated them about Mr. Donald already.

  “Mr. Donald is a man of high regard,” she began before we were fully in the room. “Accusations like the one you’re making are very serious and if proven untrue will hurt you deeply, hurt this family deeply.”

  “I’m not lying,” I said. “What Yvon told you is the truth.”

  “Describe it in detail,” she challenged, folded her arms across her bosom, and sat back. “A girl your age should not be as aware of such things, anyway, and many girls your age, especially where you come from, I imagine, fantasize.”

  “Maybe in America,” Yvon said. “Girls from France are not that ignorant of things of a sexual nature and don’t have to fantasize.”

  “I imagine with your parents, that’s very true.”

  “What?” Yvon said. His face reddened. “What does that mean?”

  “Please. Hold down the dramatics. Go on,” she ordered me.

  I described every touch before I got to what he had done up against my body.

  “The man could have had a pen in his pocket or—”

  “The bulge was not there when he first sat beside me, and there is not a pocket between his legs. Do I have to tell you what’s there exactly for you to believe me?”

  It was her turn for her face to turn crimson and then a shade more like purple after she had swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “He wasn’t just leaning over and pressing himself against me,” I continued, seeing her skepticism fading. “He was rubbing from side to side and—”

  “Enough,” she said, and waved at us as if she was shooing flies.

  “It’s not enough,” Yvon said. “If he goes near my sister again…”

  She looked down and then nodded. “I have a very good woman friend who ran a school for girls designed to ready them for secretarial work. She retired over a year ago, but I will ask her to take his place. You wouldn’t learn anything from him now whether or not he was innocent. Her name is Ella Cornfield. She never married, and she lives alone. Her older siblings have passed away. She doesn’t live far from here. I will go to see her after dinner. I’m sure she will be happy to fill her time bringing a country girl up to snuff.”

  “I’m not a country girl,” I said.

  She looked up quickly. “No. You’re not, are you? Why, when I saw you two, was Mr. Donald laughing and you were on his arm? You didn’t look afraid or abused.”

  “He was showing me how to be escorted, and he was laughing after he asked me if I had attended formal lunches or dinners and I said only delicious ones. I didn’t mean it to be funny. I meant it to be true.”

  She nodded slowly. “You’re right, Yvon,” she told him, her eyes narrowing. “People your age do grow up faster in France when they have parents like yours, perhaps.”

  She put up her hand before he could respond.

  “I have to go up to see about my sister. I’m hoping her experience today will cause her to behave and listen to me when I tell her something. She’s very spoiled, you see. It was the way she was brought up, not that she is really very brought up. I did my best, but both my parents babied her. Now look at the result. Right now, she’s showing off for you two. That will end, or I’ll keep her in her room for weeks.”

  She stood.

  “I’ve done it before,” she said, and left us.

  “Do you believe she had no idea that man was like that?” I asked Yvon.

  “Yes, I believe that. In the end, when she had to accept that what you were saying was the truth, she looked quite sick about it. Whatever. You’ll have a different tutor, and you’ll learn what you need to know. We’re going to do this, Marlena. We’re going to take over this company someday and be powerful and rich. We’ll do what we have to in order to belong here and get the respect we deserve. When you think of it, who else does she have but us? Who is all this for now? She won’t live forever, and why should strangers benefit? Perhaps Papa didn’t want it, but that didn’t mean he would never want it for us.”

  His ambition surprised me, but he was so determined that I didn’t dare challenge it. Perhaps America was changing him faster than it was me, or perhaps it was always in him to be this way.

  I nodded. “Okay, Yvon. I’ll do what I have to do.”

  He smiled. “I’m going up to change out of my monkey suit,” he said, smiling. “Let’s enjoy our dinner.”

  “Wait,” I said. He paused. “There’s something else, something more serious.”

  “What?”

  “I wandered into Aunt Effie’s office, the one that was surely our grandfather’s.”

  “And?”

  “There was a letter on her desk from Anne.”

  “Anne? And? Jean-Paul?”

  “No. It’s about… us… some family secret Anne promised never to reveal, promised only Aunt Effie could reveal it,” I said.

  He looked up the stairway to be sure Aunt Effie was occupied. “Show me.”

  After we went to her office, I did. He read it and then put it back in the envelope.

  “What do you think it means?” I asked.

  He shook his head, his eyes shifting. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t believe anything she said about us, anyway, Marlena. Ignore it.”

  “Wait,” I said, and opened the bottom drawer. He stepped beside me as I opened the folder and showed him the picture.

  “Aunt Pauline was a very pretty girl, and Aunt Effie looks unchanged. I didn’t find any pictures of Papa.”

  “Stop snooping,” he said firmly. “She’ll find out and be very, very upset. When she wants to show us something, she will. Let’s get ready for dinner.”

  He started out.

  When she wants to show us something, she will? Maybe there was never a picture of Papa.

  Never a picture of Papa? Even young?

  Yvon kept things from me. I knew that.

  But he never deliberately lied.

  Until now.

  8

  For the moment, at least, Aunt Effie had gotten what she had wanted from her sister.

  Aunt Pauline was quite subdued and obedient at dinner. She kept her eyes on her food and didn’t speak unless Aunt Effie said something to her like “Take your elbows off the table, Pauline” or “Don’t chew with your mouth open, Pauline.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said reflexively. I imagined that was something she had said thousands of times, especially to Aunt Effie.

  “Pretty soon, Marlena will help you do things properly, Pauline. And I won’t be the only one nagging you.”

  “She will?” Aunt Pauline looked at me with a smile slowly form
ing. Then she looked down quickly, as if a smile was forbidden at the dinner table.

  “She will be learning herself, and she can share what she learns with you. That,” Aunt Effie said, looking at me, “will help reduce my burden. Won’t you be happy to share your new social graces and knowledge with Pauline, Marlena?” she asked, her voice syrupy sweet.

  Aunt Pauline looked up at me expectantly.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course. I’d be happy to help in any way I can.”

  Yvon’s eyes brightened. It was as if my friendly response had opened the floodgates. He immediately began to talk about the business and asked questions. I saw from her reaction that Aunt Effie liked that. I felt oddly forgotten while they talked. It was as if she was shifting Aunt Pauline and me off to the side.

  And Yvon didn’t look at me once the entire time. He didn’t hide how fascinated he was with Aunt Effie’s elaboration on his questions. He dropped in unveiled compliments. It was plainly obvious how hard he was trying to please and impress her, and although I knew what he was doing, I couldn’t help being annoyed and disappointed. Back in France, Yvon was never one to try to be liked. If you didn’t like him as he was, it was too bad. I admired him for his self-confidence and tried to be just like him.

  After dinner, he and I were alone in the sitting room. Aunt Effie had gone to see Ella Cornfield, and the twins had brought Aunt Pauline up to her room to prepare for sleep.

  “You sounded like you really like her now, Yvon,” I said, flopping into the accent chair. He had a commercial real estate brochure in his hand and sat on the settee. He acted like he had not heard me and opened the cover of the brochure.

  “I’m surprised at how pleasant you were to her at dinner,” I said. “She wasn’t particularly nicer to you than she was to me coming here. You can’t possibly like her this quickly.”

  He looked up as if he had just realized I was with him. He shrugged.

  “Whether I like her or not doesn’t matter. She wants us to be family, Marlena. We’ll let her believe whatever she wants, and if you do help her with Pauline now, she’ll be more obligated to us. It’s all just… just good business,” he said. “And,” he added when I didn’t smile with encouragement or satisfaction, “it’s not like we have any choice. We talked about this. It’s get along or get out, and then what?”

  Even though I knew in my heart that he was right, he didn’t sound or even look like the brother with whom I had left France. But then again, Mrs. Trafalgar might be absolutely correct, I thought. You can’t grow again once you were transplanted until you became well acquainted with the new soil that would nourish you. How could I blame him for doing just that? In his own way, he was still protecting me by accepting and adjusting.

  The question bouncing around in my head was, could I do the same thing? Could I ever be anything like the way he was now? Would I ever be able to put our past lives, our beautiful memories, on some shelf while I went on pretending I was happy here? Despite all we had and where we were, I couldn’t believe, maybe refused to believe, that we would be happier.

  I saw the look of disappointment on his face when I didn’t readily agree.

  “If you act like a child, she’ll treat you like one, Marlena. Being an adult means doing things that are unpleasant for you sometimes. You have to think of the bigger picture. That’s something poor Aunt Pauline is incapable of doing,” he added. “Don’t become like her.”

  I felt the blood rush into my cheeks. He sounded more like Aunt Effie than like my brother.

  “I’m ready to go to sleep,” I said. “She can surprise me in the morning with the news of whether Miss Cornfield will be my new tutor or not.”

  He nodded, but he didn’t get up to accompany me. He continued to read the brochure describing some property. Nevertheless, I thought he would realize how disturbed I was the moment I walked away. I expected him to come after me. The French Yvon would, but he didn’t. I paused and looked back at the sitting-room doorway. The whole house looked darker. Lights flickered, and shadows began to close in from all corners. Once again, I felt how cold the world we were in was. Tonight it seemed even colder, perhaps because Yvon was moving faster and closer toward thinking of it as our new home.

  I turned and continued up. Exhausted from what had been an emotional roller coaster of a day for me, I was happy to go to bed. This particular evening, I felt as if I was sinking into sleep rather than drifting to it. If either Yvon or Aunt Effie had come to my room later to tell me about my new tutor, I did not notice or hear a word.

  I tried to get up as early as Yvon did so I could have breakfast with him before he went to the offices, but he was gone by the time I descended. This morning, Aunt Pauline was there, and Aunt Effie, rushing out herself, paused to tell me that Ella Cornfield would be here in an hour to do what Mr. Donald was apparently incapable of doing.

  “Don’t you have to be here to introduce us?” I asked when she started away.

  “For over twenty years, Ella Cornfield ran a school to train girls for business opportunities. She doesn’t need to be formally introduced to a new student. She is quite capable of getting you to know who she is quickly and formulating your curriculum. Just be cooperative. If she’s a problem, you have a problem,” she said with the sharpness of a good fisherman’s knife.

  “What about Mr. Donald?”

  “What about him?”

  “What if he shows up?” I asked.

  “He won’t show up. I had George go to him with an envelope full of money after he took your brother to the office. I paid him what he would have gotten if he had completed the assignment.”

  “Why? You still don’t believe me?”

  “Believing you has nothing to do with it. You will learn that whether you are right or not, gossip and accusations always come back at you threefold. No one in Richmond knows who you are yet, Marlena. Many know Mr. Donald.”

  “Then they should know what he really is,” I insisted.

  She shrugged. “Perhaps. What they choose to do about it is their business, not ours. Pauline, you stay out of everyone’s hair today. It’s a very nice day. Emma and Minnie will take you for a walk to the park while Marlena has her lessons. Be sure you go to the bathroom first and listen to what they tell you. Do not go anywhere without their permission. Understood?”

  Aunt Pauline didn’t speak. She stared at her plate.

  “Did you hear me, Pauline?”

  “Okay, Effie,” she said meekly.

  Aunt Effie stared at her a moment and then looked at me.

  “She’s wandered off and had to be found. One time, I had to get the help of the police. Where she thought she was going I’ll never know.”

  “To see Daddy,” Aunt Pauline said quickly.

  “You can’t see someone who is dead, Pauline. I’ve explained that to you a thousand times if I’ve explained it once.”

  Aunt Pauline looked down again.

  Aunt Effie took a deep breath, closed and opened her eyes, and then left. She did look like she was tiring and aging from dealing with her sister. Did I have an ounce of compassion? Right now, I didn’t think so. I didn’t believe I ever would feel sorry for Aunt Effie.

  “What made you think you could see your father, Aunt Pauline?” I asked her as she scooped up the remainder of her scrambled eggs.

  She stared aimlessly for a moment. I thought her eyes were as striking as Papa’s. Right now, they were the wondrous and innocent eyes of the little girl I had seen in the photograph.

  “Daddy told me to go to him whenever I needed something,” she said.

  “But you know he’s passed away, don’t you, Aunt Pauline?”

  She shook her head and smiled at me, as if I was the one who needed to be handled like a child and not her.

  “He’s still here,” she said. She looked toward the kitchen. The twins had gone in and were talking with Mrs. Trafalgar. “When they lock me in my room, he comes in,” she said. “I never tell them,” she whispered.

  She scooped up the last of her eggs and daintily patted her lips with her napkin.

  “Effie didn’t tell me to do this,” she said, proud of herself for using her napkin correctly. “Daddy did.”

  “Did you tell Effie that your father comes into your room at night?”

  She nodded.

  “What did she say?”

  “She said…” She raised her chin and looked at the ceiling, like someone who wanted to recall the exact words. “She said, ‘I’m glad he doesn’t come into mine.’ ”