Out of the Attic Page 8

  “What’s wrong, Lucas? I thought you were taking Mr. LaRuffa home.”

  “I was, ma’am,” he said. “A rider intercepted us on our way.”

  He held up an envelope.

  “What is it?”

  “A message for Mr. Foxworth, ma’am. It’s marked Urgent.”

  I looked at Garland’s door and then back at my own.

  “Then deliver it,” I said, and headed back to the Swan Room.

  Lucas didn’t move until I had entered and closed the door behind me. I stood there, listening as he hurried past and then knocked quickly on Garland’s door. After a moment, I heard Garland ask, “What’s wrong?”

  There was some mumbling between them. When I opened the door to peer out, Lucas had gone in, and the door had been closed. I stood there, waiting. Minutes went by before Lucas emerged. I closed the door softly until I heard him heading back to the stairway. Then I walked out and started again for Garland’s room.

  When I entered, he was dressing quickly and was up to putting on his boots.

  “What’s happened?” I asked. “What was the message Lucas had to deliver at this time of night?” He glanced at me and returned to his boots. “Garland?”

  “I have an emergency,” he said, standing. He reached for his coat. Whatever it was had clearly sobered him up quickly.

  “What kind of an emergency?”

  “Business. Everything in my life is about business! Don’t you know that by now?” he added bitterly.

  His sharp retort made me wince. What had happened to the man who had danced with me in the ballroom just a little while ago, the man who had been so happy and energized at dinner, his face filling with promises of love afterward?

  I stepped back. There was something very different going on here, I thought. He no longer looked flushed from his wine. He looked a little pale, in fact.

  “Why are you so upset, Garland? You told me when you take it personally, you miss opportunities and make mistakes. You said your father taught you that emotional reaction shows weakness, especially when you are working in commerce.”

  “Yeah, well, my father’s no longer here, no longer running all this. He never had these kinds of challenges. His empire was much smaller than mine.”

  “But where are you going now, Garland? It’s late for business negotiations, isn’t it?” I asked. “Who holds meetings at this hour?”

  He paused and looked at me as if he thought I was a complete idiot. Then his demeanor changed as if something had clicked in his head, and he smiled. He walked to me and took my hand.

  “I’m so sorry. I know what you were looking forward to tonight. But you really must get a better grip on your sexual hunger, Corrine. A woman has to be far less at its mercy than a man. You know what I think, what everyone of any quality thinks, of women who are unable to do that. You wouldn’t have been the raging young mare you were when we first met if you had tightened the reins a bit, now, would you?”

  “What?”

  I stepped back, pulling my hands from his.

  “What are you saying? Raging young mare?”

  “My mother always warned me that women, especially the young women of this age, would aggressively set their sights on me. Every woman sets a trap for a man. It’s simply in her nature. She makes herself as desirable as she can from the first day she realizes her sex. It’s not unlike putting some cheese in a mousetrap.

  “Don’t look so outraged to hear me say these things. In your heart you know it’s all true. It’s just… life,” he said. “A boy becomes a man when he realizes it.”

  “But you were the one who came after me, romanced me at the Wexler gala.”

  “A bit of flirtation… only natural. Actually, you were the one who followed up on it rather quickly.”

  “That’s not true. Why are you saying these things now, years later?”

  He held his smile. “I doubt there’s a man walking the earth who would fault me for being so attracted to you. Don’t misunderstand me. Of course,” he said, stepping toward me again, “once it all happened, I realized how much I loved you and how it would all work out well for the Foxworths. Just look. We had a son immediately.”

  “What Foxworths? You’re the only Foxworth, Garland.”

  He stopped smiling. “Don’t be so literal. We were taught early in our lives that we should think of ourselves as generations and not individuals. I work as hard for my family’s reputation as I do for myself… and you, of course. You should be proud of that, proud you bear the Foxworth name. You couldn’t get into this house otherwise. Think of all those in this community who would die for that opportunity. They would overrun the estate.”

  I stared at him, unable to think of anything else to say. The more we talked, the more uneasy I felt. Let him go do his business, I told myself. He’ll be different when it’s over.

  I stepped to the side because he looked like he would charge right over me.

  “When will you return?”

  “Oh, it’s late already, Corrine. Don’t wait up for me. Just go to sleep. I promise I’ll make up for it,” he said, with that coy, flirtatious, and arrogant smile he could slip over his face instantly. Right now, it annoyed me. If I had the courage, I would slap him across his self-confident face. I didn’t want him to “make up for it.” I wasn’t counting how often we made love. He made it sound like I had to keep a quota, deposit every instance in some wife’s account.

  He gestured toward the door. “I have to go.”

  I stepped forward, opened it, and walked out. The moment I did, he seized me at my shoulders, turned me, kissed me hard and quickly without much passion, and then started away. Whatever was driving him, anger, ambition, whatever it was in his body, hoisted his shoulders as he charged at the stairway. I stood there looking after him, feeling as if a sharp, cold wind had flowed in and out of the house, leaving me shivering and confused, confused because I had no idea why what had occurred and been said should make me so afraid.

  But it had. I could feel it in my bones.

  I returned to my room and slipped under my blanket. I let the lights flicker and watched the shadows dancing on the walls. They looked like they had emerged from somewhere within the mansion, little demons joyous at my unhappiness.

  It was unlike Garland to be so critical of all women and throw me into the mix so casually. I was his wife. Didn’t I deserve more respect? Right from the first time I had set eyes on him, he had struck me as flirtatious and coy. Especially during our first few years together, he never appeared terribly concerned about the warnings he now claimed his mother supposedly had given. He had never said anything remotely like that. In his heart he surely knew that I was certainly not a fortune hunter. My foolish young-girl mind was wrapped around an exciting romance, not an exciting bank account. He knew that.

  Foxworth Hall and his immense fortune weren’t even on my mind after we had met. I knew nothing about his businesses and property. Except for my father’s references to Garland’s financial success, I didn’t think of him as someone so powerful and important in that world. Surely he had seen my innocence. It was almost as if his mother had been resurrected minutes ago and was whispering in his ear, saying things like Just as I warned you, a fortune hunter. She has no respect for our money. As for our great heritage… look at how disinterested she is in your son. She’ll never be a Foxworth.

  That’s unfair! I shouted at the shadows. I didn’t demand a wet nurse. I didn’t demand Dora be his nanny. He’s the one who wanted to keep me like some precious sexual conquest, a jewel-laden wife hanging on his arm.

  I turned over and embraced my pillow like someone trying to squeeze the life out of it. My whole body was taut, in a rage. The mixture of emotions made me dizzy. There was no switchback that could take me as high and then as low.

  What business crisis was so critical this late at night that he had to turn me away from his bed and, on top of that, make it look like I was the one who was so disappointed? He had made it sound, o
r at least had made me feel, like he pressed himself into me with a golden phallus every time we made love. He practically had said, Be grateful for every thrust, every kiss and caress, and return to your Swan Room to drift into a pleasant sleep dreaming of my gift of love to come. You have made love to a Foxworth.

  The more I thought about it, the more I tossed and turned and ground my teeth with my building rage. I was tempted to get up, go down to his library, pour myself some of his precious whiskey, and sit there waiting for him so I could greet him with my indignation the moment he returned. I sat up, thinking I would do just that, when I heard a knock on my door. It was so gentle I had to listen hard to see if I had imagined it.

  I definitely heard it the second time.

  “Who’s there?”

  I watched the door open very slowly and saw Malcolm standing there. He had obviously gotten out of bed. Maybe all the noise had woken him.

  “What is it?” I asked. I was definitely not in the mood to be soft and kind. What he had done was still fresh and painful in my memory. “Why are you out of your room?”

  He took another step toward me and looked down. I stared at him. He was backlit by the flickering lanterns in the hallway, but I could see something curious on his left arm. I threw off my blanket and got out of bed. He looked up as I approached and quickly pressed his arm against his nightshirt. When I pulled it away, I saw the bloodstain and the clear slice on his forearm. Fresh blood trickled down toward his hand.

  “What is this? What happened to you?” I cried.

  “I’m sorry, Mama,” he said. Whenever he called me Mama instead of Mother, it was usually to pry some favor out of me.

  “Sorry?”

  “For what I did to you, to the album,” he said.

  I was still holding up his arm. “What about this?”

  “I punished myself,” he said.

  “What? You deliberately cut yourself?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “Oh, this is great. Your father is going to love seeing this,” I said, but I didn’t mean Garland would be angry at him. Somehow he would find a way to blame me. “Come on,” I said, tugging him. “Where’s Dora?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I took him to the bathroom and washed the wound. Not finding the medicine and bandages quickly, I started cursing under my breath. I gazed at Malcolm. He was staring at me. I saw no fear in his face, no pain from this deep cut he had inflicted upon himself. He seemed more intrigued with my reaction than anything. I began shoving things around in the cabinets. Finally, on the most obvious shelf, I located what I needed. I had never addressed any scratch or scrape he had suffered, so I wasn’t familiar with the cabinet’s contents.

  He didn’t take his eyes off me as I worked on his cut and bandaged it, hopefully as well as Dora would have. When I was finished, I led him back to his room and got him back into bed.

  Ironically, I never felt as close to him as I did at this moment. He had been silent, helpless, and intrigued with me the whole time. I stood there looking down at him.

  “Why did you do that, Malcolm? Why did you cut your arm? You could have caused a lot more bleeding if you had cut it lower down.”

  “Saying I’m sorry isn’t enough,” he said. He was reciting it, but somehow he still made it sound authentic.

  I studied his beautiful face. As he grew he was capturing the best of both Garland and me with his cerulean eyes, perfectly shaped nose and mouth, and golden hair. I had no doubt that he would grow more handsome than his father and he would break more hearts. Ironically, I was both proud and sad about it. If I didn’t do my duty and develop a respect for women in him, he would or could be more of a scoundrel than his father.

  “Rather than punishing yourself to redeem yourself, Malcolm, think harder before you let your anger control you. Anger only leads to more pain and unhappiness. And you should be even more careful about what you do to girls and women. You’re supposed to protect them, because men are stronger. Mothers and sisters, girlfriends, or just girls you meet will depend on you to be nice to them.”

  “Is Daddy nice to you?” he asked, his eyes narrowing with that Foxworth peer.

  “He tries to be,” I said. He looked like he understood my diplomatic answer. “The important thing is to try, try hard. You try harder, okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Go to sleep. Tomorrow, after breakfast, I’ll let your father give you a present he bought you. You’ll try again to be a good boy, okay?”

  “Yes, Mother,” he said.

  I fixed his blanket. I didn’t put him to sleep often enough. I leaned over and kissed him good night.

  When I went to the door, he called to me.

  “Thank you, Mother. I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Okay. Go to sleep, Malcolm.”

  When I closed the door behind me, I stood there. How terrible it was, I thought, that even after all that, I was still suspicious. I still suspected him of doing it all just to get me to relent. My son was not even five years old, and I didn’t trust him, even after seeing him do such a dramatic and terrible thing to himself. Perhaps it was my fault. Perhaps I was simply transferring my suspicions of my husband to our son. Only time would tell whether or not that was true.

  I started to return to the Swan Room and then stopped. Where was Dora? Malcolm would always go to her first when something unpleasant had happened to him. Normally, he would have gotten her to bring him to me. Maybe he had tried. Maybe she had told him to go to me directly. I knew how much she had wanted me to forgive him. I went to her bedroom, the room that had been the wet nurse’s, and looked in. She wasn’t there. For a moment I thought she had gone downstairs for something, and then it dawned on me. Of course, I thought, now really in a rage, and marched down to Garland’s mother’s bedroom. Angrily, I thrust open the door. There she was, asleep in his mother’s nightdress.

  “Get up!” I shouted at her. She sat up quickly. “He won’t be needing you tonight for whatever voodoo-hoodoo this is. He’s had some sort of a business emergency. Meanwhile, Malcolm deliberately sliced his own arm.”

  “Sliced?”

  “He cut it and came to me. I’ve cleaned it and bandaged it. Don’t bother going to him. I put him to bed. Just go to your own room. Now!”

  I shut the door. My heart was pounding as I returned to the Swan Room. After I closed the door behind me, I leaned against it and caught my breath. Something inside me had changed or awoken. I was coming out of the shadows. I wouldn’t be some ghostlike spirit moving expectantly from one place to another, following some role, pretending to be Mrs. Foxworth only anymore. Corrine Dixon would come back in her own way. I had spirit; I had personality of my own.

  Earlier I had intended to go down and wait for Garland in his library. Why not do it now? That would certainly impress him. I spun around and walked out of the Swan Room to go downstairs. This was certainly something his mother would do, I thought, and stopped. For a moment it was as if I had been possessed. The idea simply burst in my mind like someone had tossed it into my head. I walked to his mother’s bedroom. Dora was gone; she had left so quickly that she hadn’t hung up Garland’s mother’s nightdress. I took mine off and put hers on. Like some magic coat of armor, it seemed to give me even more courage.

  I went down quickly and settled myself into the soft-cushioned chair Garland used when he sat and read in his library, and I stared at the doorway to the entry, waiting. I doubted that a business meeting would take all the remaining night. He’d settle his problem and come charging back, and I’d be here just as I had planned.

  That was my firm intention, but the hours crawled forward so slowly, and after a while, the tension, Malcolm’s dramatic apology, and his self-inflicted wound filled me with a deep and overwhelming fatigue. I was soon unable to keep my eyes open. Moments later, I was in a very deep sleep.

  I didn’t know what time it was when I awoke, but Mrs. Steiner was standing there looking at me when the sun streaked through the open curtain
s and the warmth nudged me awake. For a moment I didn’t know where I was. Maybe I was still in some dream.

  “Is there anything wrong, Mrs. Foxworth?” she asked. I imagined she was quite aware of what I was wearing. My mother-in-law’s nightdresses were quite distinctly hers and quite different from my own more fashionable clothes.

  I ground the sleep from my eyes and then looked at her. The entire night before came rushing back at me.

  “Where is Mr. Foxworth?” I asked.

  “He’s gone on his business trip, Mrs. Foxworth,” she said.

  “What do you mean? He was here? He returned?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Lucas told me he didn’t want to wake you. There’s a note left for you on his desk.”

  I rose slowly, incredulous. How could he have been here without my hearing or knowing?

  “I heard nothing, saw no one.”

  “You must have been very tired, ma’am. Dora told me how Malcolm had woken you and you had to take care of his terrible cut. She’s bandaged it again.”

  “What was wrong with my bandage?”

  “Nothing. A cut like that has to be treated often or there could be infection,” she said. She smiled. “Dora had a little bit of nurse training, you know. For when she took care of her parents.”

  “I know, I know. I know how competent Dora is.” I looked at Garland’s desk. “He left a note, you say?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Would you like to take your breakfast in your room this morning?”

  “I’ll see,” I said. “Thank you.”

  She nodded and left. I went to Garland’s desk. There was an envelope. I sat in his chair and opened it to take out the note.

  Dear Corrine,

  I’m so sorry but events occurred rapidly threatening business interests. I barely had time to come home and pack what I wanted to take with me to New York. I have to leave a day earlier than I had planned, but think of it this way: I left a day earlier so I’ll be home a day earlier.

  Please, when you’ve forgiven him, give Malcolm the train. Perhaps you can spend time with him playing with it.

  Do amuse yourself with having your new friend to lunch and going to one of their social meetings, if you like.