House of Secrets Read online

  “Me, neither,” Ryder added as we separated for our classes. The look on his face gave me a chill. Ordinarily, I would have been happy to hear him say such a thing, but for some reason, I felt I was facing an unexpected challenge. It was as if he really expected I would look as beautiful in the dress as his mother had, that I was somehow worthy of the dress.

  But what if I didn’t look anywhere nearly as attractive in it? What if I looked silly in it or something? Maybe he should have offered the dress to Alison instead of me. Why didn’t he if it was so special to him? Surely, he thought Alison was very beautiful. She was. Everyone said so. Was it that he wouldn’t want her to wear a hand-me-down? Did he see my mother and me the way Bea wanted him to see us, as the poor servants living in the rear of Wyndemere? Was he hoping that I, like some mythical Cinderella, would, when I put on the dress, magically rise out of the ordinary, if only for one night?

  And as soon as prom night was over and I took off the dress, would I return to that second-class person Bea Davenport insisted my mother and I were? I was afraid of that moment when the prom and all that followed had become a memory. I’d hang up the dress, put away the shoes, and return to childish fantasies and, more important, perhaps, my place in Wyndemere, even my place in my school.

  Ryder didn’t even mention my riding to or from school in the limousine again. I thought that prohibition remained to placate Bea Davenport and give her some small victory. After all, from what Ryder was telling me, Dr. Davenport was criticizing her not for how she had treated me but for how she had treated Sam. His usual aloofness, especially when it came to me, would continue except for one small but surprising moment.

  Ryder came to see me during dinner Friday. My mother and I were in the kitchen. He knocked and entered.

  “Sorry to bother you, Miss Corey,” he told my mother.

  As always, when she saw Ryder, especially without his father or Bea present, her face lit up. She was as excited as she would be to see and speak to her own child. No matter what he did when he was younger, and even now, she was always one of the first to defend him, especially in front of the other servants. Of course, it was difficult to defend him when he was insolent to his stepmother in front of a maid or Mrs. Marlene, but rather than criticize him, my mother would remain silent. Her look was enough. Everyone understood. The only face that truly smiled at Bea Davenport in Wyndemere was the face Bea saw in the mirror.

  “It’s all right, Ryder. We’re just having a quick nibble. Fern is too nervous to eat, and she makes me too nervous to eat as well,” she added.

  Ryder looked at me and smiled. “I’ll be sure she’s fed well at the prom and after,” he promised. “I just wanted to stop in to tell Fern that my father has asked for her to stop by his office just before Paul arrives. He’d like to see her in the dress, so she should plan accordingly.”

  My mother froze with the bowl of salad in her hands. “Oh?” she said. She looked at me. “That’s very nice, right, Fern?”

  For a moment, I couldn’t speak. It was one thing for Ryder to see me in the dress and say something cute or funny or even very nice, but Dr. Davenport would be looking at me and thinking of his first wife. If he thought I did his wife’s memory a disservice, he might just nod and turn away. It would be devastating, right before I was going to leave for the prom. How would the rest of the night feel? My depression would drag everyone down, especially ruining Alison’s night, and she would never let me forget it.

  “Yes. Very nice,” I managed to say.

  I should have had more confidence, I know. Both my mother and I loved the way Mrs. Levine had adjusted and fitted the dress to me. She had insisted on taking a picture of me for her shop wall. For her, it was a work of art. My mother was staring at me in a way I had not seen her stare.

  “What?” I asked her, afraid she thought wearing Samantha Davenport’s dress was a mistake after all.

  She shook her head. My heart began to sink. How would I get a nice dress now and the shoes to match?

  But then she smiled. “I’m thinking of how sad and unfortunate it was for my father never to have set eyes on you. You resemble his mother in so many ways. She was a very beautiful woman.”

  “And so are you, Emma,” Mrs. Levine said. “I’m not surprised at how Fern’s turned out. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

  “Unless the tree’s at the top of a hill. That’s what my father would say when explaining me to his friends.”

  “Well, he’d be wrong,” Mrs. Levine insisted.

  To have such a wonderful reaction from Mrs. Levine and my mother was great, but it wasn’t the same thing as having Dr. Davenport consider me.

  “I’ll stop in my father’s office with you,” Ryder said now. He knew I was nervous and even a little frightened about it. “He likes to check how I look, too. I don’t think he’ll carry on about my hair. He’s given up on that. Okay?”

  He looked at my mother.

  “She’ll have a great time. I promise,” he told her. “And I’ll look after her.”

  “That’s good,” my mother said. “Thank you, Ryder.”

  “See you soon,” Ryder told me, and left.

  I turned to my mother. “Now I wish we had bought me my own dress,” I said.

  “Oh, don’t be foolish, girl. That dress cost ten times what we would have spent, and you look beautiful in it. Dr. Davenport will be proud of how you wear it. It will do his wife’s memory justice. I remember her well, and you look just as good in it, if not better. And that’s that,” she said.

  Maybe she was right. Maybe I was being unnecessarily nervous and looking for excuses for myself. After all, I was going to be double-dating with Alison. Her beauty would overshadow me—anyone—anyway. Why wasn’t I more worried about that?

  “Mr. Stark will be by to take you to the beauty parlor tomorrow,” my mother said. “I won’t be going along, you know. I have work to do here.”

  “Did you really like the style I chose?”

  I had shown her the half dozen pictures Alison had given me.

  “Certainly did.” She paused to think. “I haven’t been to a real beauty salon since I worked in New York.”

  “Whose fault is that?” I asked. For as long as I could remember, Mrs. Marlene cut her hair and she cut Mrs. Marlene’s. She had always cut mine. She told me her father wouldn’t even permit her mother to spend money on a beauty salon. Her mother, her sister, and she had to learn how to cut and trim their own and took turns doing it for each other.

  She pulled her shoulders up. “Ain’t you the smarty-pants now?” she said, half-kidding. She glanced at her reflection in the one kitchen window we had, which was over the sink, and fluffed her hair. “I might just make my own appointment. George saw a few nasty little gray strands sneaking in.”

  “He told you that? Cheeky,” I said.

  She laughed. “George Stark and I have long since stifled any pretense between us.”

  “Did you know his wife well?” I asked, my old suspicions reviving.

  “Not well, no,” she said. “She contracted a vicious cancer, and from the time she was diagnosed to the day she passed, it was barely four months. Very difficult time for Mr. Stark,” she added. “You weren’t born yet, but I had Ryder to care for, so there was just so much I could do to help. His way of dealing with it was to work harder here,” she added. “And Cathy was a big help to him, too. But let’s not talk about sad things now. You have a wonderful event ahead of you.”

  She smiled.

  “You know, the word prom can be different in England. There, the Proms are daily orchestral classical music concerts. I went to one in the Royal Albert Hall when I was a few years younger than you. I loved all music. That was very exciting for me, but not like the excitement you’re having at your first prom.”

  “You must have had some formal dates before you left England,” I said. I was determined to get her to tell me more intimate things about her life.

  She nodded and sat at the t
able. “There was a young man who haunted my front door. He was wary of my father, who looked at every possible beau I might have as if he was a potential rapist. But this young man was undaunted.”

  “What was his name?”

  “Nigel. Nigel Douglas. Nigel Ashley Douglas, to be exact. His father owned a pharmacy, and he worked there until he went to college. He went to Oxford for pharmacology. I’m sure he took over his father’s pharmacy.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No. When I left, as I told you, only my sister stayed in touch with me, and secretly, of course. She could whisper news about me to my mother whenever my father wasn’t around.”

  “Did she ever come to America to visit?”

  “No. My sister was doomed to be a spinster. She was a slave to my parents. I shouldn’t say ‘slave’; I should say ‘dedicated.’ I was more selfish.”

  “And now?”

  “And now she takes care of my mother, who really needs to be in a home.”

  “Don’t you ever want to go see her?”

  “She suffers from serious dementia. She wouldn’t know I was there, Fern. It’s better that if she remembers anything, she remembers me before I left. Oh,” she said, snapping out of her reverie quickly. “There you go again, getting me to talk about the saddest things. Live for today, not yesterday, Fern. That’s what I do now. You’re what matters and what will matter, and that’s that.”

  After dinner, I put on my prom dress again and stood before the full-length mirror my mother had given me long ago. I imagined Ryder standing beside me in his tuxedo, looking smart and handsome. I had seen him wearing it and knew how distinguished he could look, even with his rebellious hairstyle.

  When I closed my eyes, I imagined dancing with him, not Paul. How hard that was going to be, and how foolish I might look in Paul’s arms, I thought.

  My mother knocked and peeked in. “Well, this is truly a dress rehearsal,” she said. I must have looked embarrassed. “That’s all right, Fern. I’d be doing the same thing. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I was going to O’Heany’s tavern for a little while with Mr. Stark.”

  “You are?”

  “Well, I should. Today’s his birthday,” she revealed. “He wouldn’t let me or Mrs. Marlene make him a cake. He’s really a shy man.”

  “Wish him happy birthday for me. I would have tried to get him something if I had remembered.” If I hadn’t been concentrating so much on myself this whole week, I would have, I thought.

  “Oh, I got him something from us, his favorite aftershave lotion. Actually, I got him to make it his favorite, English Leather.”

  “Did your father wear that?”

  “No,” she said. She paused, started to close the door, and stopped. “It was something Nigel wore,” she said, and closed the door.

  I stood there for a moment staring at the closed door. What if she lied to me? What if Nigel Ashley Douglas did follow her to America, followed her here?

  What if he was my real father?

  I took off my prom dress slowly and then looked at myself in the mirror. Was it terribly wrong, narcissistic, to gaze at yourself, delighted at how your figure was forming, perhaps more than simply nicely? My breasts were round and firm and felt fuller just these past few weeks. I was developing what my mother called “an hourglass figure.”

  Preparing for bed now, I undid my bra and turned to look at my side profile when I pulled my shoulders back. I imagined Ryder opening my door the way he once had and bursting in on me again, only this time, he would see me half-naked. He wouldn’t speak; he wouldn’t even swallow. He’d barely breathe. And instead of rushing to cover myself, I would turn slowly to face him fully.

  The images sent wave after wave of erotic feelings up my legs to the insides of my thighs. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I saw how flushed I’d become. Was this the way my mother was a little over sixteen years ago? Whoever had come upon her when she was undressed would have had every iota of self-control diminished.

  They had embraced each other under waves of passion as strong as an undertow at sea. Resistance was futile, really unwanted. There were no thoughts about tomorrow, only thoughts about the moment. My lips were salty with the images, my father’s strong body pressed gently against her softness. What words did he whisper, what did she whisper? Were there any promises? Did either offer a wait or a no?

  Most of, if not almost all, my friends did not obsess about the sexual moments that resulted in their conception. From the way they spoke, I sensed a resistance against thinking of their parents in that way. For me, because of how forbidden it must have been and still was, there had to be an undeniable and persistent fascination.

  Would I ever feel sexual and not think of it? At night, when I closed my eyes and had my sexual fantasies, I often envisioned my mother much younger and as defiant as she had been when she left England against her father’s wishes. Never once, perhaps because the possibilities weren’t yet there, did I sense her concern that I might have a moment of sexual surrender and weakness like she had.

  But surely it would begin to have a seat at the table now. Her questions about my dates and places I wanted to go would be sharper, closer. She would wonder if she indeed saw too much of herself in me. Yes, there was that apple that didn’t fall far from the tree. Was I wiser, stronger, and more alert to the dangers because of what she had done and who I was?

  I was confident now that she would talk more about herself. I had reached a place where she was unafraid of damaging childhood innocence. We were growing closer. A part of me welcomed it, but a part of me regretted losing the comfort of make-believe.

  I lay back on my bed, naked now, and kept my hands at my sides. There was such a strong urge coming from every erotic place, calling for my touch. Conquer it first in yourself, I thought, and it might be easier to conquer it when it comes with someone you like, someone you want very much to touch you and make you cry with delight and wonderful fear simultaneously.

  I closed my eyes and thought of other things. Minutes passed. I heard the sounds in the house and my own heart thumping. I crawled beneath my cover and turned off my light. I was poised, waiting for the sun to give birth to tomorrow. The ghost of Dr. Davenport’s first wife and the ghost of his sister, Holly, were making their way through the walls of Wyndemere to wait with him in his office, wait for me to come walking through that door.

  I must not disappoint them.

  That was how I began my prayers. I fell asleep listening to the whispers promising me that I would not disappoint anyone, especially not Ryder.

  Were they the whispers of the ghosts of Wyndemere, or were they my own?

  5

  MR. STARK WAS more excited about my going to a beauty salon than I was. From the way he spoke, I wondered if his daughter, whom I always called Aunt Cathy, had ever gone to one, especially before or when she was my age. Did she have any real dates or boyfriends? She never had mentioned any romances to me, high school or otherwise, and I never thought it was my place to ask. I feared she might somehow consider the question a criticism of her lack of relationships. Or maybe she would think I suspected her of being gay.

  As far as I knew, Mr. Stark never complained about his daughter’s anemic social life. He was proud of her accomplishments in nursing and talked about the good work she did for charities run by their church. She seemed to be one of those women destined to be spinsters from the day they were born. And it wasn’t because she was particularly unattractive. She was certainly as pretty as many of Bea’s friends. The only hint Mr. Stark ever dropped was to say, “Cathy’s very particular about who she spends her time with, maybe too particular.”

  Thinking about Cathy Stark from time to time often caused me to wonder about my mother. It wasn’t only because she was my mother that I thought of her as an attractive woman. She still had a very nice figure, probably because she worked so hard that she burned away calories before they could even contemplate adding to her weight. I couldn’t re
call a time during my sixteen years when she looked any heavier. Except for the few times she was sick with a cold or the flu, she always had a vibrant, healthy complexion. She certainly didn’t look her age. I had friends who told me she could easily be mistaken for my older sister.

  Because she had the courage to attempt to be an entertainer, and in a different country at that, she was certainly not shy. She was forceful when she had to be in the house with the staff, and wherever we went, she would not avoid conversations with strangers, even men she didn’t know. But when it came to these men and their obvious interest in her, she had a way of putting a quick Don’t bother into her demeanor. Maybe it was the sharp chill she would bring into her eyes or the way her smile flew off her face.

  Why wasn’t she interested in them? Didn’t she dream of some man coming along and whisking her and me off to a wonderful new life where she wouldn’t be a servant to anyone anymore? Did my father make her a promise that she still believed would come true? Recently, I wondered about her sexual needs. Had all that somehow died when I was born? Was her self-confidence when it came to romance shattered with the realization that she had given in to hot passion too easily, and was she afraid it would happen again if she began a relationship? How could I ask my mother such questions without causing her to feel even worse about her past?

  I couldn’t, but I could listen for clues, not only in what she told me but in what she said to others, especially Mr. Stark. There were mysteries swirling around him as well. For starters, he rarely talked about his son. When I asked my mother about it, she said it was one of those cases of oil and water and left it at that. Of course, I wouldn’t dare directly ask him anything so personal, although I believed he would never resent anything I did or said. It wasn’t hard for me to see how much he enjoyed my company. He was very excited for me today. It drove him to think about his own high school romances.

  “On my first real date, I was so nervous that I forgot to put enough gas in my car.”