House of Secrets Read online

  “At someone’s house, Shane Cisco. He’s one of Ryder’s best friends in school.”

  She thought a moment. “Well, if Dr. Davenport approves of Ryder going, I suppose I can approve of your going. What time is all this over?”

  “It could go all night,” I said. “It’s a tradition.”

  She stood there staring at me in a funny way and then shook her head.

  “What?” I asked.

  “My father loved that word. He used it to stifle any and every new thought my sister and I had or explain away anything he wanted us to do without really justifying it. His answer was always because it was traditional. Just be wary of anyone who wants you to do something because it’s traditional. But,” she said, changing her dour expression and tone instantly, “I’m sure it will be a wonderful night for you. I wish I’d had a prom.”

  “Didn’t you have any nights like that back in England?”

  She looked thoughtful again. Was she about to reveal that part of her past that she had kept so long under lock and key? She shook her head. “Sometimes remembering the past makes the present unbearable. That’s not unusual, Fern. Your childhood, these years, are meant to be golden. Then you become an adult, and suddenly you can no longer be oblivious and carefree. Don’t rush to get there. I’ll start on dinner,” she said, and left me feeling so twisted up inside that I wished I had no feelings for anything, anything at all.

  Later that night, after my mother had gone to bed and I had just slipped under my covers and was about to turn off my night-table lamp, I heard my bedroom door being opened. I sat up as quickly as I would if I believed one of Mrs. Marlene’s famous ghosts had arrived.

  It was Ryder.

  His face looked flushed with excitement. He was in his robe and pajamas.

  “What’s happening?” I whispered. With all the commotion Bea Davenport had stirred up, I knew my mother would not be happy about his sneaking down and over to our side and giving her another reason to complain.

  “My father just had a big fight with my stepmother. First time I’ve heard him like that. And it was all about the dress for you to wear to the prom.”

  “Really? You know she came over here to complain to my mother?”

  “No,” he said. “Why?”

  “She thought my mother had come up with the idea and told your father. From what she said, my mother thought he was the one who might have complained to your stepmother and sent her here to bawl out my mother.”

  “He only told her about it. He didn’t complain. Tonight she started to rant and rave about it, and they had the fight. Believe me, he thought it was okay for you to wear my mother’s dress.”

  “Oh. So what do I do? My mother wants to take me shopping for a dress this weekend, and she thinks you won’t be able to double-date with Paul and me now.”

  “Forget that. I discussed it with my father, and he’s approved. Tomorrow you’re coming home from school in the limousine with Sam and me and Alison.”

  “Alison?”

  “Yes. As soon as we’re home, the three of us are going up to the attic to choose the best gown. And if my stepmother doesn’t like it, she can . . . go to another charity luncheon,” he said, and smiled.

  “Alison wants to do that?” I asked. I tried to hide my disappointment. I was dreaming of Ryder and me alone in the attic, rifling through clothes and in a unique way being more intimate than we had ever been. I was sure he would share his feelings about never knowing his real mother. He would tell me things that he had never told anyone, maybe even his father.

  “Sure. She wants to be in on the decision, and besides, what do I know about women’s clothes? We’ll talk more about it at lunch tomorrow,” he said.

  “I hate to have been the reason for a fight between your parents.”

  “She’s not my mother, so I don’t think of her as a parent. Forget about it. I’m glad my father finally spoke up.”

  “I suppose,” I said.

  He stepped a little closer and looked at me so softly that my heart began to race. Then he touched my hand and smiled. I wanted him to kiss me, and I think he wanted to do that, too, but he pulled his hand back.

  “See you in the morning,” he said, and left as quietly as he had come.

  I lay back on my pillow and thought about what he had told me. It was all making me nervous now. Dr. Davenport had never interceded to take my side or, as far as I knew, my mother’s side in any dispute that involved Bea Davenport. Was this his way of revealing how much he really missed his first wife? Maybe my mother was wrong about all that; maybe he was pointed in Samantha’s direction, but he had honestly fallen in love with her. I decided I would ask my mother more about it. She was certainly going to be surprised at the outcome about the dress.

  On the other hand, she’d remind me that a poked snake never forgets. You could win a battle but lose the war, and in this house, there seemed to be continuous hostilities going on, with constant skirmishes about how things were cleaned, how dinners were served, and how the servants behaved in general. Whenever it was to her advantage to do so, Bea Davenport would remind my mother she was supposedly the house manager or something. Therefore, any problem, no matter how small, had to be her fault. It was as if from day one, Bea Davenport was out to build a case to justify dismissing my mother and evicting us from Wyndemere. Perhaps my mother’s compromise, at least regarding the dress, was the best way to go for now.

  How had something that had loomed so wonderful become the cause of so much turmoil? I knew Bea Davenport well enough to believe she would not accept defeat when it came to ruling what she surely believed was her kingdom, Wyndemere. I had seen my mother verbally abused by her, and I had seen how my mother did not fight back. Perhaps she knew that was exactly what Bea Davenport hoped for, a defiant, disobedient house manager who would not work well with her. She always looked more frustrated by my mother’s retreat, at least whenever I had witnessed one. This had the makings of being different. It wasn’t over, not by a long shot, and it made me very nervous.

  Maybe it would even ruin our special night.

  At breakfast the following morning, I told my mother about Ryder’s visit and what he had said. As I anticipated, she did not look happy about it.

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  She sat with her cup of coffee silently for a few moments.

  “Ryder never accepted Bea Davenport,” she began. “Even as an infant, he seemed repulsed by her. In those days, when I was caring for Ryder and you, I expected she would assume some of a mother’s role, do things like shop for him, look after his eating and hygiene, and perhaps even play with him, show him some attention. She didn’t have Samantha until nearly a year after she and Dr. Davenport had married, and when she did give birth, she repulsed Ryder even more.”

  “You were more like a mother to him once his real mother died. I’m sure Dr. Davenport realizes that, too.”

  “Yes.” She looked up at me, her eyes narrowing. “I have great fondness for Ryder. He’s a wonderful young man, but you have to be wary of one thing, Fern.”

  “What?” I asked, feeling like my heart had paused in anticipation and fear.

  “Be wary of him using you to strike at his stepmother,” she said.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m sure he would like nothing more than his father driving her out of their lives. This dress could be a way of building a wedge between them. And I’m sure he’ll be on the lookout for other ways.”

  “He’s not that conniving, Mother,” I said, a little outraged at the suggestion.

  She shrugged at my indignation. “It’s not necessarily a weakness to be good at conniving in this world, Fern. Perhaps I know Ryder better than anyone.”

  “He’s not a mean person,” I insisted.

  “I didn’t say he was. What he wants to do doesn’t come from meanness. It comes from wanting more love.”

  “His father loves him, doesn’t he? Even though he’s not the most emotiona
l man. I guess he’s like that because of what he does, right? I mean, a doctor who has patients who might die and do die can’t be emotional. Am I right?”

  She rose and went to the sink. “You don’t want to miss the bus,” she said.

  “Well, what do I do about the dress? Ryder wants to have me and Alison Reuben choose one today.”

  She turned and looked at me, obviously deciding.

  “If it’s what Dr. Davenport wants or approves, then damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead,” she said.

  I started to laugh and then stopped, wondering just what those torpedoes would be like.

  3

  RYDER DIDN’T INVITE me to go to school in the limousine with him and Sam. I waited for the bus at my usual spot in front of Wyndemere and watched as he and Sam were driven off. The windows were tinted, so I didn’t know if either was looking my way. For years, it was like this, even if it was raining. My mother gave me an umbrella, and I stood under an old maple, but in the late fall and winter, with the leaves stripped away, that provided little shelter. Usually, I didn’t have to wait much longer after they had left in the Davenports’ limousine. Ryder had told me his stepmother had mentioned that the one and only time his father suggested I go to school with them.

  “She has only to wait another five minutes,” she had said. “We must draw the line between what we give our servants and what we give ourselves.”

  My mother would surely call her a Royalist, I thought, and imagined she did, if not to herself, then to Mrs. Marlene.

  Today I was more disappointed than ever about not going in the limousine to school, however. But then I thought Ryder might not want to telegraph his plans to his stepmother, which, I’d have to admit, was somewhat shrewd on his part. He didn’t want to give Bea another opportunity to stand in our way by complaining to Dr. Davenport about how Ryder and I were defying her orders every chance we had. My mother probably did know Ryder best of all. Still, despite his cleverness, I couldn’t help but be nervous about what we were planning to do after school.

  Once again, the four of us sat at the same table during lunch. I could feel we were the center of attention. All my friends were looking our way and chattering like excited sparrows.

  “How big is the attic at Wyndemere?” Alison asked me. “Wyndemere is such a huge mansion.”

  Ryder waited for me to answer, but I shook my head. “I don’t remember ever being up there. I don’t even know exactly how you go up there, where the stairs are.”

  “It’s about a third as big as the house, like a loft,” Ryder explained. “Some of the things up there go back to before my grandparents owned the place, furniture, armoires full of old bedding and stuff. There’s nothing terribly valuable, as far as I know, except, of course, my mother’s things. But they’re valuable only to my father and me,” he emphasized.

  “Maybe there’s some buried treasure,” Paul suggested. “Or a dead body, a skeleton.” He grimaced as if he was telling a story on Halloween.

  “Thanks. I’m taking these girls up there. You’re not helpful.”

  Paul shrugged and laughed.

  “There’s a stairway on the east end of the upstairs, just beyond the last guest bedroom,” Ryder said, more to me than to Alison. “I haven’t been up there that much, either. Almost all the times I went up when I was younger were with your mother.”

  “My mother? Why was she up there?”

  “I don’t know. She was looking for something or other. There were some old toys she thought I’d like, I guess. I don’t even know whose they were. My father didn’t seem to know when I showed them to him, so they weren’t his. I did go up there with my father a year ago. He didn’t tell me why he was going up. He just invited me to go with him, and when my father invites me to do something with him, I drop everything I’m doing to go.”

  “Yeah, when my father invites me to go with him someplace, it’s to help with something, do some work,” Paul said. “I hide.”

  Alison laughed, but I wanted Ryder to stay on the subject and tell more.

  “Why did Dr. Davenport go up there?” I asked.

  “He went through my mother’s things looking for something. That’s how I learned about the dresses.”

  “What was he looking for?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Some jewelry, maybe, or some picture. I wasn’t paying all that much attention.”

  “It’s nice your father still thinks about her,” Alison said.

  I looked at her. I wished I had said it because of the smile Ryder gave her and how he reached for her hand. He behaved as though he thought there was magic in their touch. It brought a glow to his face.

  “He’s pretty busy, but when he has a chance to relax and do nothing, I believe that’s all he thinks about,” Ryder told her. “I’m kind of like that with you.”

  Alison’s smile deepened. She glanced at me with a look in her eyes that told me, See? He’s clay in my hands to mold.

  Ryder paused, a little embarrassed at how he and Alison were behaving as if Paul and I weren’t there, too.

  “Okay,” he said, turning back to us. “So we’re set. Paul, did you get your tuxedo?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah. I gotta buy one of those.”

  “You rent it, Paul, with tuxedo shoes. Next time you use a tux will probably be your wedding,” Ryder told him.

  Alison laughed. “He’ll probably get married on a baseball mound,” she said.

  All the blood in his body seemed to rush into Paul’s face. I actually felt a little sorry for him.

  “You own a tuxedo, don’t you, Ryder? You don’t rent one, right?” I asked.

  “Yeah, but that’s because of the charity events my father and Bea make me and Sam attend. Paul’s luckier.”

  “Well, maybe you should go with him to pick one out and all that comes with it,” I suggested, sounding like I was defending and looking out for Paul, I’m sure. Ryder’s smile widened at how quickly I got concerned.

  “You should,” Alison said. “He’s liable to get something with pins and stripes.”

  “Huh?” Paul said.

  “Well, I guess I will,” Ryder replied. He saluted us both, and Alison and I started to laugh. “We’ve got our marching orders, Paul. This Saturday, we get you fitted. Don’t make any other plans.”

  “Yes, sir,” Paul said, saluting, too.

  “We’re going to have the best time of anyone at the prom,” Ryder promised. “Dressed like penguins or not, Paul. Of course, the women will be dazzling.”

  “They are now,” Paul replied, and Ryder looked surprised at his sharp, clever response, but very happy.

  For me, it was as if I had stepped on a cloud.

  However, despite Ryder’s assurance that his father not only approved of my using one of his first wife’s gowns but seemed pleased by the idea as well, I was still quite anxious and edgy at the end of the school day. What if he had changed his mind while we were in school, or once we chose a dress and he saw which one it was, he told us to put it back? I’d be devastated, and it might be the cause of a bad argument between Ryder and his father. How would I feel then? What a damper that would put on the prom.

  Nothing was as simple as it seemed, especially within the confines of Wyndemere. There were no normal expectations. Mrs. Marlene’s ghosts were always in the shadows, and I was always walking on thin ice.

  All my girlfriends, most of whom had been cross-examining me about every detail related to the prom, were surprised when I veered off the path to the school buses and headed for the front of the building, where Parker usually parked to wait for Ryder and Sam. I had said nothing about it, realizing this might be the one and only time I would go home in the limousine. It was painful to explain to them how my mother and I were treated at Wyndemere, painful and difficult, because I didn’t want to blame the doctor for anything, and I certainly didn’t want gossip to get back to Bea Davenport.

  Alison, Ryder, and Sam were already waiting at the limousine.

  “C
’mon,” Ryder urged, holding the door open for me. It felt like some kind of urgent escape.

  I slipped in to sit between Alison and Sam. Ryder sat across from us.

  “All aboard?” Parker asked.

  “And ready for takeoff,” Ryder replied. He took one look at my face and shook his head. “Stop worrying so much, Fern. Follow Bea’s instructions, and never grimace with concern, or you’ll get wrinkles.”

  He looked at Alison.

  “She even avoids smiling, because she read an article about how it, too, can hasten wrinkles. She cross-examined my father about it at dinner one night.”

  “What did he think?” I asked before Alison could.

  “He thought it was ridiculous, but whenever he contradicts something she’s read or believes, she tells him he’s too much of a specialist to know. Like a cardiac surgeon wouldn’t have the basic medical education,” he added.

  I glanced at Sam. I often wondered how she reacted to Ryder’s criticisms of Bea. After all, she was Sam’s mother. However, Sam, like the two of us, had gotten more attention from my mother than her own when she was an infant. I knew she idolized Ryder and looked up to me as well whenever she could, even now. I thought the fact that she would disobey her mother to spend as much time with either Ryder or me proved where her real loyalties lay.

  “I want to go up to the attic, too,” Sam said. “Can I?”

  Ryder looked at me for help.

  “You’d have to get your mother’s permission first, Sam,” I said.

  “Dad didn’t say I could bring you,” Ryder quickly added, “so Fern’s right. Ask your mother.”

  “What if she’s not home?” Sam asked, the unhappy thought rearranging her entire face, her eyes narrowing and looking like they were on the verge of flooding with tears, her lips twisting, and the tip of her nose dipping. When something upset her, she was almost a mirror image of her mother.

  “If she says yes whenever she is home, I’ll take you up to explore,” Ryder promised.

  “I want to go with all of you today. I want to see the dresses, too.”

  “Oh, Ryder, why can’t she?” Alison asked. “If it’s that disgusting up there, how can we expect to find anything suitable for a prom now?”