Out of the Attic Read online

  I was still too upset about what I had witnessed to confront Garland about it the following day, and when I saw Dora, I didn’t make any new reference to it. I hoped that eventually Garland would explain. Maybe Dora had told him I knew or he had realized I had seen him. However, he didn’t say anything, and for a long time, it never happened again. I was always good at drowning and burying things that disturbed me. No one was more critical of that than my mother, who accused me many times of creating my own reality.

  “Someday,” she predicted, stating it like it was something she wanted to be true rather than something inevitable, “it will come raging back and slap you in the face.”

  In a way she was right, of course. Ignoring it didn’t make it go away. But I feared the whole house would come down on me if I mentioned his secret night visits. Every ancestor in every portrait would come to life and scream. So I tried to talk around it and suggest some things that might get him to reveal this strange behavior himself. Wouldn’t that be a better way? However, I could see the panic in his face from just a small suggestion or a question like “Shouldn’t we arrange for Dora to be with people her age, maybe even find her a job where she isn’t confined like this? We could find an older woman to be Malcolm’s nanny and assist me with anything I needed.”

  I practiced saying it in front of my mirror before actually doing it so I would look and sound innocent, sound as if I was simply looking out for poor Dora.

  “Dora’s fine,” he said. “We’re all she has. Don’t be selfish and cruel. A crippled woman would end up with a scoundrel.”

  Truthfully, even though Dora had been born with one leg shorter than the other and limped, she didn’t look distorted or in any pain. She was in fact quite attractive. However, I couldn’t deny that because she came from a working-class family and men of stature and wealth would not settle for anyone with any sort of deformity, much less a woman below their station, Garland was right. I stopped talking about it. I never really had any high hopes for her to have a real romantic future. To pretend so and be insistent about it would be too obvious. Garland was sure to ask what she had done to justify my passion to rid myself of her. He might even suggest I was somehow jealous of her. That would surely lead to a terrible end.

  “Oh, you’re probably right,” I told him. “You’re very good when it comes to helping those who aren’t as fortunate. Look what you’ve done with Olsen and Lucas.”

  That pleased him and smothered any speck of a suspicion.

  I didn’t push him any further about the secret, but in the back of my mind, I was thinking of a plan. It was clearly important to him for Dora to dress in something of his mother’s. What if there wasn’t anything left of his mother’s wardrobe, not even a handkerchief? What if one day I got rid of it all? I could empty those closets and drawers and give the clothes to the Salvation Army. Of course, they were too fancy, but they could tear up the material and have new clothes created for the poor. It was important to look charitable if you were as rich as we were. How could he blame me?

  Twice during the past year, I set out to do just that and both times lost my courage.

  So I left it. I left everything the way it was.

  It was simply just another thing that haunted me, and in this house, being haunted seemed accepted by everyone. But it was not for me. I wished I could smother every ghost and crush every secret like a cigarette.

  Maybe that was why the ancestors in the portraits scowled at me. They knew what was in my heart. I wanted to rip them all off the walls and put them up in that attic that ran nearly the length of this mansion. It was more of a proper setting for them all. Now I believed that just thinking about what it had been like locked up there for several minutes would surely give birth to new nightmares. I doubted I would ever go into that section of Foxworth Hall again. These bedrooms, Garland’s, Malcolm’s, and mine, the dining room and kitchen, the library and sitting room, and, if there was a gala affair, of course, the ballroom would be all I cared to frequent. The spiders and rodents were welcome to the rest of it.

  These days especially, since even before the attic incident with Malcolm, I felt the mansion was closing in on me more and more, just like I had the first day of my marriage. How could I continue to walk through hallways afraid of what would come out of the shadows in my own home? However, I said nothing to any of the servants or my parents, especially not my mother.

  But I was afraid. I was very afraid.

  Maybe it was my wishful imagination, but when I looked closely at the faces of the servants, especially Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Steiner, I thought I saw similar fears. They, too, seemed to remain within the boundaries of their work. It was as if the rest of the mansion didn’t exist for them. Especially during my first years here, whenever I asked Mrs. Steiner about a room or a corridor left unused and untouched, she would assure me that if and when Mr. Foxworth wanted something done with those places, she would see to it, but for now, “It’s just moving dust from one wall to another, only to have it come back and no one there to see or care.”

  No one but ghosts, I thought, but never said.

  My defiant and mischievous son had forced me to go to the places I had avoided so long. I hoped Garland would finally be more of a father and speak to him firmly. Apparently, his own father had been a strict disciplinarian. Why should he be so different or indifferent? He was close-lipped when it came to talking about his own upbringing, except when he wanted to describe his hunting exploits with his father. It was almost as if that was the only time they had ever seen each other.

  It occurred to me that there was a way for me to learn more about my husband. Maybe today, because of all that had happened with Malcolm, I was convinced I should know more. How much of what a Foxworth was in heart and spirit determined who and what my own son would be? Why shouldn’t I know my husband and his family as much as a servant did? Knowledge smothered secrets, didn’t it? I dreamed of a day not a single one remained in Foxworth Hall. Why not start with this one? I had put it off too long.

  Dora looked especially vulnerable to me right after the commotion with Malcolm had died down. I was resting on the velvet chaise while she was at work on repairing the wedding album. I watched her trying to restore the torn pages, ironing out as many creases as she could. She was so protective of Malcolm, so determined to lessen and hopefully eliminate whatever pain or unhappiness he experienced. Perhaps he embodied the child she believed she would never have.

  “Stop that,” I ordered. She looked up, surprised. “I want to talk to you. You can go back at it afterward.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She put the iron down and waited. I rose from the chaise and stepped toward her. She looked absolutely terrified, which I thought was good. I knew she was surely blaming herself for what Malcolm had done both to the album and to me. She thought that was what I was going to do now, ream her out and threaten to get rid of her. I would never let her know that I had tried and failed. Maybe that was bothering me the most, that a servant commanded my husband’s loyalty more than I did.

  Why?

  “Up to now, I have kept your secret, my husband’s secret, and not forced you to do or say anything about it. You know what I’m talking about, Dora. Don’t look dumb and confused.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She was holding her breath.

  “I’m not demanding you stop doing it, doing whatever he needs you to do, but I want you to tell me what he tells you in his mother’s bedroom. Why does he cry? I’ve seen you together. Don’t deny it,” I quickly added.

  “Oh,” she said, and brought her hands to the base of her neck.

  “Well?”

  “He doesn’t always cry.”

  I folded my arms across my bosom and pulled my shoulders back just the way my mother used to when she was cross-examining me about something I had done and didn’t buy my answers. Despite my reluctance to in any way resemble her, I had to step into my mother’s shoes from time to time. It was a giving-the-devil-her-due sort o
f thing.

  “Sometimes he’s just there for a while, silently, and then he gets up and leaves.”

  “Not saying a word?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “How did this start? Was it your idea?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. No.” She shook her head so hard that I thought she’d break her neck. “I would never think of such a thing.”

  “Then how did it happen?”

  She looked at the door.

  “My husband is not due home until later. He never walks in without knocking anyway. Go on.”

  “It wasn’t long after he had hired me,” she began. “He wanted me to organize some of his mother’s things, do some dusting in the room. He liked it to look like she was still there.” She hesitated.

  “Like she was still there, still alive?”

  “Yes. I had to change the linen every week and wash some clothes.”

  I sat on the bed and thought about it. Although Garland talked about his mother from time to time, he never did so with tears in his eyes. Maybe he’d smile, remembering something she had said or done. He’d praise the way she had handled the servants and looked after the house, but he’d say nothing more informative and revealing. So much of what was here was here because she had bought it, wanted it, and designed how it should be placed, right down to candlestick holders, which was why he was so adamant about my not changing things. Was that the way he expressed his sorrow?

  The most he had ever said to me about it was, “When people you love pass and you remove anything that reminds you of them, you bury them deeper and deeper until you forget them enough to feel like they never existed.”

  “But most people do that,” I said. “Your great-grandparents’ things and older ancestors’ things were put up in the attic, weren’t they? You called it another Foxworth cemetery.”

  He smiled and then looked up at one of the portraits. “And he’s not too happy about it,” he said, and walked off. Apparently, what his forefathers believed and did was not what he wanted to do. Perhaps that was a good thing, something for which I should not fault him. After all, wasn’t there something beautiful about a son’s devotion to his mother?

  I looked at Dora. She was trembling a little now, wondering what I would do to her.

  “People who love someone very much don’t want to let go when they’re gone,” I said.

  She looked grateful. “Yes, ma’am. That’s what I believed.”

  “Believed?”

  “Believe, I mean. Yes. It’s sad.”

  “So if you didn’t want this, how did it come to be?”

  “One afternoon, when I was working on Mr. Foxworth’s mother’s clothes, I fancied one of the dresses. I even considered taking it to my room, and the shoes, of course.”

  “So?”

  “I took off my dress and put it on. There I was admiring myself in the mirror when Mr. Foxworth appeared. I nearly fainted. I can tell you that. My heart surely stopped and started. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t swallow.”

  She closed her eyes as if she was reliving the fear. She clasped her hands and twisted them.

  “And?” This was truly like pulling teeth.

  She opened her eyes, a little more widely. “He didn’t speak. He just looked at me strangely, so strangely. I became even more frightened. I thought this was it; I’m going to be sent home, and my poor brother might lose his job all because of me. But he didn’t get angry. He smiled, and that took more of my breath away.”

  “Smiled?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He said, ‘You look just like her when she was about your age.’ ”

  “You? Look like her? I’ve seen her portrait, Dora. You couldn’t look anything like her no matter what you wore of hers.”

  “I thought the same, but I wasn’t going to say so. No, ma’am, I wasn’t. If he wanted me to look like her, that’s what I’d do. I had to protect my position and my brother.”

  “Yes, yes. Go on.”

  “I told him I was sorry and that I would never do it again, but he shook his head. ‘No, no,’ he said. ‘I want you to put that dress on again, and another dress, and another. When I want you to do so, I’ll leave the dress out on the bed there. You put it on that evening.’ I didn’t know what to say or do. Did he want me to go about the house in his mother’s dress? I knew I’d look foolish.”

  I nodded, waited.

  “He knew what I was thinking. He said, ‘After you put it on, you stay here. You lie on that bed, and you wait for me, no matter how long or how late. Understand?’

  “ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. I thought maybe he just wanted me to wear it and walk about the room to help him remember his mother. I even thought that was a very sweet thing to do. I did, ma’am. Honest.”

  “Of course you did. What else could you think? Did you tell your aunt about this?”

  “Oh, no. I’ve told no one but you. He had me swear I wouldn’t tell my aunt. But seeing you had seen me in his mother’s clothes that night when you first came here…”

  “Exactly. So you did what he asked? You put on whatever he left out for you to wear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And he came to the room late in the evening after I had put on the dress. That first time, I waited and waited and fell asleep. I still had some chores to do downstairs. I was afraid my aunt would wonder about me, but she had gone to sleep herself.”

  I nodded, waited. Maybe she was hoping that I would think that was enough. It wasn’t, not nearly.

  “I woke up when I felt his hand on my arm and saw he was kneeling at the side of the bed. Before I could speak, he said, ‘I’m sorry, Mama.’ I was afraid to move. I was afraid to speak. He was calling me Mama. ‘Please, don’t let Father beat me,’ he said.”

  “He said that? You mean, he was acting as if he was a little boy again? You didn’t tell me this when I asked you the first time.”

  “I was afraid to, ma’am. He was like someone in a dream,” she said, nodding. “I didn’t know what to say or do, but he was looking at me with such hope that I said, ‘No, he won’t beat you.’ I don’t know where that came from, ma’am. To this day.” She paused. “But…”

  “But what?” I nearly shouted.

  “But to this day, because I’m in her room, in her clothes, I wonder if she doesn’t indeed speak through me.”

  “What?” Now I brought my hands to the base of my throat. “Do you hear her?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know what I hear and… sometimes I don’t remember what I said.”

  “That’s… that’s crazy,” I said. “What did he do that first time when you told him you’d protect him from his father?”

  “He smiled then, and after a moment, he lay down on the other side of the bed, curled up, and went to sleep. I didn’t move a muscle. I felt so tired, exhausted from it. I fell asleep myself, and when I awoke later, he was gone. I got out of the dress immediately and hung it up in the closet.”

  “How often did this happen?”

  “Maybe a half dozen times before you were married and three times since,” she said.

  “What other things has he told you in this dreamy state?”

  “Nice things about his mother, not so nice about his father.” She looked like that was all she wanted to say and then added, “His father locked him in the attic once.”

  “Yes, he told me that.”

  “Without food,” she added, “but his mother snuck it up to him.”

  “Really? He didn’t tell me that.” I was getting more annoyed. A servant knew more about my husband’s past than I did. But now I thought I had heard enough. “Okay, return to repairing the album.”

  “Do you want me to do anything, say anything about it now, ma’am? I mean, if you tell him or say anything, he’ll know we spoke of it and…”

  “No, I’m not going to say anything, but I do want to hear about it from time to time and immediately if there is anything sexual involved.”

  “Oh, that will never be, ma’am,” she said, prac
tically gasping.

  “How can you be so sure? Your experience with men is, by your own admission, practically nonexistent.”

  She smiled. “He’s as sweet and helpless as Malcolm sometimes is.”

  “Sweet and helpless? I have yet to see that in Malcolm,” I muttered.

  I left the Swan Room and walked down to Garland’s mother’s bedroom. Dora did keep it as immaculate as she did the Swan Room. There were even fresh flowers in the vases. I opened the closet door and looked at all the old clothes and shoes. Everything appeared clean and pressed. She hadn’t exaggerated. Garland’s mother could rise from the grave and continue on as if nothing had happened.

  I stood there listening, wondering if I could hear his mother’s voice, too. After a moment, I felt foolish. Actually, as I thought about what Dora had told me, the way she had described Garland, I felt sad for him. His manly ego perhaps kept him from sharing something so emotional with me. My hope was that as time went by and our marriage grew stronger, he would, and perhaps then Dora could be helped to do something more with her life.

  I stopped in Malcolm’s room on my way back and saw he had fallen asleep. Why was it that little boys, even men, when they were asleep looked so innocent and helpless? Malcolm’s face looked streaked with some recent tears, but had he been crying because of what he had done or because he was being severely punished?

  I wanted to sit beside him and stroke him the way Dora had described petting Garland in his dreamlike state, but I hesitated, thinking my clever little imp would see that only as weakness. He would mumble another apology and plead for me to end his punishment, even as it had just begun.

  Ironically, I thought of myself and the way I used to play up to my father to get him to end some life sentence my mother had pronounced because of something defiant I had done. I loved him for loving me so much back then, but his deal with Garland right before I agreed to marry him came back up in me like sour milk.

  My rage was restored. I turned and left without touching Malcolm and certainly without kissing him. After I closed his door, I stood there in the hallway a few moments and looked into the darker part of it.