Beneath the Attic Read online

  I quickly covered the expression on my face. My parents? In broad daylight? On someone else’s property? However, I did look at them with some suspicion. My mother appeared a bit guilty. Perhaps Foxworth Hall could be magical, I thought, especially when it came to love.

  After lunch, Garland suggested we all take a nap. He had planned another big dinner and sent for a violinist from Charlottesville to entertain us while we dined.

  “And Mrs. Wilson has made us one of her wonderful golden rod cakes,” Garland said. I wondered if it would be half as good as Hazel’s. “After dinner, Corrine and I will have a surprise for you in the ballroom.”

  When we returned to the house, Mrs. Steiner sent Dora up to my room immediately to help me out of my clothes, take them all to be washed, and, when I was ready, set out my evening dress. She made no attempt to bring in another of Garland’s mother’s. She folded back the top sheet of my bed and fluffed the pillow. I couldn’t imagine myself doing things like this for another woman, especially one younger. She closed the curtains so I wouldn’t be bothered by the afternoon sunlight and then, after I got into bed, blew out the candles.

  “Wake me in an hour,” I said when she opened the door.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I think she curtsied, but I was too dozy to care. In minutes, I was asleep. Taking naps in the daytime was not something I usually did, but I did know that many women, even girls my age or a little older, too, thought a nap during the day kept them looking younger. When Dora did wake me, I was sorry I hadn’t told her two hours, but there wasn’t that much time before we would all gather for dinner.

  “I have your bath drawn,” Dora said when I groaned and covered my eyes after she opened the curtains. “We haven’t put out what you wish to wear.”

  We? I thought. She made it sound like she was now an indelible part of my life and would be as close as my shadow.

  “I have a new skirt and bodice to wear tonight.”

  This outfit I had brought was a startlingly new fashion with a pastel tulip of bell skirt that was smooth and tight over my hips down to its wide hem. The white bodice was cut narrow over my shoulders with gathers of pleats and full over my bosom. Dora looked quite surprised when she laid it all out.

  “I doubt you’ll find anything like it in Mr. Foxworth’s mother’s closet,” I said.

  She turned to me but kept her face frozen, clearly unsure how she should react. She was afraid to say anything that might be critical of Garland’s mother’s clothes, but she was also afraid of offending me. Instead of feeling sorry for her, though, I was annoyed. If she was going to become part of a we, she had better learn to like what I liked, and quickly, too, I thought petulantly, and then regretted it. What did the poor girl have, really? Certainly not much of a future here. It suddenly occurred to me that she was not much better off than she had been when she was her brother’s caretaker. At least then there had been the slim possibility of meeting someone who could steal her away. Whom could she meet here besides some Foxworth ghost?

  After I bathed and dressed, Dora brushed my hair. For a moment, I felt like a doll she was playing with, her face in my vanity mirror soaked in some fantasy like someday caring for her own daughter. I put my hand over hers to stop what were becoming unnecessary strokes.

  “Enough,” I said. “You’ve done a lovely job of preparing me. I fear I might become too dependent on you, Dora.”

  “No fear, ma’am,” she said. “I doubt you could become too dependent on anyone.”

  She almost bit her own lip after saying that, trembling at what my reaction might be. I looked at her in the mirror and then burst into laughter.

  “So quickly,” I said.

  “What, ma’am?” she asked fearfully.

  “You’ve gotten to know me so quickly,” I said, and she smiled with relief.

  Our second dinner went even better than the first. My mother was really a different person, laughing at every joke my father and Garland made, complimenting Garland on how well he managed such a big estate, and then giving me an unexpected compliment by saying, “Corrine knows how to protect beautiful things. I didn’t have to teach her anything when it comes to that.”

  “Perhaps she’s inherited so much more from you, Mrs. Dixon, than she realizes now. But in time, she will, I’m sure,” Garland said.

  With all the wine he had drunk and my mother’s good spirits, my father looked happier than I had seen him in years. He even looked younger to me. Was it the afternoon delight?

  Garland’s violinist, a tall strawberry-blond-haired man, was placed far enough from our table and played so softly that he soon became part of the setting. Every once in a while, my father would toast him. Toward the end of the dinner, Garland called him over and whispered something to him. He returned to his place and continued to play. After we had our golden rod cake, which wasn’t as good as Hazel’s, we all went to the ballroom. I noticed the violinist following us. Garland had that impish twinkle in his eyes.

  The room seemed even brighter and more dazzling than previously. Mrs. Steiner and Dora followed us, too, and when Garland signaled to them, they took our glasses of dessert wine. He nodded at the violinist, who began to play a Viennese waltz by Johann Strauss. I was very nervous about it, but I surprised myself, remembering his instruction. My parents were clapping.

  “Join us,” Garland called, and they did.

  We were all dancing. Were these two really the parents I had known all my life?

  When the evening ended, everyone was talking at once, my father reminding my mother that I was remaining at Foxworth Hall.

  “It makes so much sense. There’s so much for her to do in so short a time,” he said.

  My mother agreed. “And I have so much to do at home,” she declared.

  My father and Garland met in the morning to finish discussing the wedding details. My parents then left a little after breakfast. Lucas brought the beautiful carriage to the front, and Garland and I said our good-byes.

  My mother was glowing when she turned to me. “Never in my wildest dreams, my wildest wishes for you, would I have imagined this, Corrine. I am sorry I didn’t have more faith in you. My darling daughter,” she said, and hugged me.

  I felt more deceptive and low and nearly confessed, but my father’s glance awash in warnings kept me silent. This isn’t so terrible, I thought as they started for the carriage. After all, I am in love, and Garland is so in love with me. He held my hand as we watched the carriage turn and start away.

  “Dr. Ross will be here in a few hours,” he said. “Dora has been preparing the Swan Room for you. She will show you my mother’s things, and you can choose to keep anything you wish. You know from the way he adjusted your wedding gown that we have the best tailor in Charlottesville here tomorrow to adjust and fit whatever you choose. And yes, as I promised, Lucas will take you to Charlottesville the day after to shop for whatever else you need in your wardrobe. I have an account set up for you at Miller and Rhoads.”

  I looked at the carriage disappearing, and despite everything Garland was saying, his love, the servants, Dora, the wealth and size of Foxworth Hall, I suddenly had a sense of deep, dark foreboding. There’s no reason for it, I told myself, but it followed me back into the grand house. Garland kissed me and went into his office, and for a moment, I stood there alone in the large foyer, with every ancestor glaring down at me. All were asking the same question, or at least it was what I heard in my mind.

  How dare you?

  Dora appeared on the stairway as if she had materialized out of thin air.

  “Ma’am,” she said. “Your new room is ready, and I can take you to Mrs. Foxworth’s wardrobe.”

  Mrs. Foxworth’s wardrobe. Oh, get this over with, I thought, and walked up after her.

  I had no idea how big Garland’s mother’s wardrobe was. In what was her bedroom, the two walk-in closets were filled with her things, including shelves of shoes and hats. Almost all of it was something my mother would love to
own. I wondered if he would mind my giving most of it to her. Finally, knowing how important this was to Garland, I culled four skirts and bodices, a coat, and a half dozen petticoats. It was hardly anything compared to what was there, but it was something, hopefully enough to satisfy him.

  “I’ll bring it all to your room for the tailor to adjust tomorrow,” Dora said, and started to carry out the garments.

  Later that afternoon, Dr. Ross arrived. Garland accompanied him to the doorway of the Swan Room and introduced him. He was a short man, only a few inches taller than I was, with very thin gray hair on the sides and back, crowning a bald head peppered with brown age spots. He had thick gray eyebrows and a narrow face with a sharp nose. His small shoulders and upper back were raised so that he resembled someone in a constant cringe. Garland added that he was the family doctor for years and had delivered him. I had no doubt.

  After the introduction, Garland left us, but Dora came right in and stood off to the side. Dr. Ross stood gazing at me as if he had forgotten why he had come.

  “Well now,” he said. “Let’s see what we have here.” He asked me to lie flat on the bed and then seemed to turn his hands loose like someone releasing two canaries.

  The examination was embarrassing. I kept asking, “Do you have to do that?”

  “Oh yes, yes,” he said.

  When he was finished, he stepped back and said, “I’ve never had a healthier specimen.”

  “Specimen?”

  He smiled, patted me on the thigh, and left to report to Garland.

  I could see from Dora’s expression that she sympathized with my discomfort. I made up my mind to again ask Garland to hire Nurse Rose. She was better than any midwife, but when I went to look for him, Mrs. Steiner told me he had gone to Charlottesville to work on arrangements for our wedding and reception. He had told her he wouldn’t be back for lunch. Later in the afternoon, a messenger arrived to tell us—me, mainly—that he wouldn’t be back in time for dinner, either. I spent the day exploring more of the house. Dora hovered behind and around me as if she would lunge to pick up anything I dropped. I finally told her to go take a rest or help Mrs. Steiner with her duties, whatever they were.

  So much of the house was dark, unused. I made my way slowly with a candle and found the hallway that looked down on the ballroom. Every time I paused, I thought I heard footsteps. I suspected that either Mrs. Steiner or Dora was shadowing me, worried that I might in some way hurt myself. A pregnant woman should be concerned about tripping and falling, especially in these dark areas of the mansion. But I was bored enough to be courageous and found myself opening the door of another upstairs bedroom. It was so far from everything I wondered who would have used it. There was no doubt it hadn’t been used for years. A doorway inside it opened to another, narrower stairway. Surely, I thought, it led up to the attic, but right now, I had no interest in going up there.

  Since Garland wasn’t returning for dinner and there would be no one but me, I didn’t bother to change. I took a short rest in the Swan Room, what was now my room, admiring everything in it. I so wanted to show it to Daisy. Wasn’t it a bit cruel to just forget her the way Garland wanted me to? I understood his logic, but maybe I could figure out a way to get her to come visit. If she did so before my pregnancy was obvious, why would Garland oppose it?

  When I was in Charlottesville to shop, I would find that telegram office and send her one inviting her next Monday. But then I thought, what if it really upset Garland so close to our wedding? Maybe later, I reasoned, while there was still time before my pregnancy was obvious.

  Dora came to tell me dinner was ready. The prospect of eating at that big dining-room table alone discouraged my appetite, but Mrs. Wilson had prepared a turkey breast with cranberries and yam, which was one of my favorite meals. Apparently, my mother had left her a list of things I liked. Dora served me and stood behind me while I ate, until I told her she was making me nervous. If something fell, I promised, I’d call her. Afterward, I went to the library to wait for Garland and plucked a book off the shelf because of its title, Wired Love. When I opened the cover, I saw there was an inscription.

  For Garland . . . this could have been about us.

  Love, Claudette

  Of course, I wondered why and began reading. It was the story of a telegraph operator who began a flirtation with another telegraph operator fifty miles away, neither knowing what the other looked like. I became so involved in the story that I didn’t realize how much time had passed until I finally looked up at the grandfather clock and saw how late it was. Could Garland have returned and not known I was waiting for him? But then why wouldn’t he come looking for me?

  I hurried out with the book, and, perhaps waiting for the sound of my footsteps, Dora came rushing from the kitchen to greet me.

  “Ready for bed, ma’am?”

  “Has Mr. Foxworth returned?”

  “Not yet, ma’am.”

  “Are there any more messages?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  I stood thinking and then decided I should go to bed. He’d most surely come to me when he arrived, I thought. Snuggled comfortably under the swan, I tried to read a little more but found my eyelids too heavy to keep open. When I did open them again, the light of morning had already begun to tiptoe its way into the room. I rang for Dora, who came so quickly I wondered if she had fallen asleep in the hallway right outside my door.

  I assumed Garland must have stopped by and found me in a dead sleep. I decided to throw on a robe and go surprise him, wake him by crawling in beside him. First, of course, with Dora’s assistance, I washed and brushed my hair.

  “What should you wear this morning?” she asked.

  “I’ll choose something in a while. You can go help set the table for breakfast,” I told her. “Mr. Foxworth and I will be down in a while.”

  She looked confused, like she wanted to say something.

  “What is it, Dora?”

  “Mr. Foxworth didn’t come home last night,” she said, and then fled the room as if she had accidentally set it on fire.

  Garland didn’t arrive until a good hour or so after I had eaten some breakfast. Because it was a cloudless, warm day, I sat outside with a second cup of coffee and my novel, but before I continued reading, I simply stared at the lake, mesmerized by the rolling beauty of the hills beyond it. The surrounding forest, now fully bloomed, looked like an artist had made long brushstrokes of dark green over it all. I did feel like I was captured in a painting. Someday I might hang on the walls inside and someone who was first brought to Foxworth Hall would look up and wonder how such a young, beautiful girl in full bloom herself ended up beside so many grim-looking ancestors.

  The great house loomed above and behind me, casting a thick, wide, and long shadow. It was probably my imagination, but birds seemed to be careful about entering it. Eating my dinner and breakfast alone had left me with an unexpected feeling of doom and depression. I should be feeling just the opposite, but I felt everyone’s eyes on me and thought they were soaked in pity. What were they thinking? This could be your life now, Corrine Dixon? Get used to the hollow sound of footsteps, the long, dark shadows flowing out of corners, and the smell of faded flowers?

  I could hear the workers off to my right completing the work for the wedding and reception. Mrs. Wilson told me at breakfast that one of the older gardeners who predicted weather based on his old aches and pains assured her that we’d have a perfect day. Did a perfect wedding day guarantee a perfect life? Were vows made before a minister more powerful and lasting than promises followed by “cross my heart and hope to die”?

  But at the moment, I wasn’t thinking of our gala wedding so much as I was thinking about Daisy and the other girls, imagining what they might do today. Maybe they all had gone cycling together, some of the boys coming along. I was sure I had become the biggest topic of discussion. I could hear Daisy saying, “Didn’t I tell you Corrine would be the first to marry?” The parents of some of them sure
ly had been invited. I was probably quite the celebrity, but I wasn’t feeling as happy, as successful, and as important as I had imagined I would.

  Who would be my new friends here? Would they all be older women, wives of Garland’s business associates? Suddenly, I was seeing the world from my mother’s point of view. She had faced the same sort of future when she married my father. My father wasn’t as rich, of course, but his world and Garland’s ran on the same tracks, powered by engines fed by the same sort of ambition. When did ambition become greed and the greed become stronger than any other motive, even love? Who could answer these questions for me?

  How would I find a new best friend? one voice inside me asked. Another quickly answered, shouldn’t I be more excited about the future balls and dinners I would attend with Garland than worrying about girlfriends? Think of the parties Garland and I would have. He’d be too busy for the details. I’d be in control of all that. The great house would echo with my footsteps as I pointed to something and ordered that it be changed, dressed in a brighter color, or simply removed. I would shop and travel, even after the baby was born. I’d have a nanny and wouldn’t be tied down with any of the responsibilities most other mothers would have, those my mother had. Wasn’t this always my plan, my dream?

  What I was feeling at the moment was surely simply the normal nervousness any woman would feel on the threshold of a new life. Despite the confidence I had displayed until now, I was afraid of this future that had come so quickly upon me. How could I navigate so many new pathways successfully? I had to adjust to the moods of a man who, unlike my father, wouldn’t necessarily put me, my pleasure and satisfaction, above his own. My own happiness depended on how well I did persuade him. Every day would bring new feelings, new fears.

  I surprised myself by wishing my mother had remained behind with me. Suddenly, confiding in her and having her oversee every choice I made wasn’t so terrible. I couldn’t unburden my feelings with Dora or Mrs. Steiner. I certainly couldn’t discuss them with Garland. A man wouldn’t understand. I was going to make many mistakes, maybe tragic ones. To rid myself of these dark thoughts, I shook my whole body like a dog would shake off water.