Out of the Attic Read online

  I shall hopefully return soon.

  As always,

  Love, Garland

  I sat back, stunned. He left a day earlier? Why hadn’t he woken me to say good-bye? He’d be gone so long this time. Had he even noticed I was wearing his mother’s nightdress? Wouldn’t he have been a bit curious? This didn’t seem right at all to me. I rose and went looking for Mrs. Steiner. She was just crossing from the kitchen toward the stairway.

  “Mrs. Steiner,” I called, waving the note like a flag.

  She paused. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Did you actually speak to my husband and see him leave this note on his desk?”

  She looked like she didn’t want to answer.

  “Well, did you?”

  “No, ma’am. I spoke only to Lucas.”

  “How did you know about the note?”

  “From Lucas,” she said, nodding.

  “Is he back?”

  “No, ma’am. He took Mr. Foxworth’s things and left only about an hour ago.”

  “What do you mean, Mr. Foxworth’s things? Where was Mr. Foxworth?”

  “I don’t know for sure, ma’am. I think waiting in the carriage. But I don’t know for sure. It was very late, and the commotion woke me.”

  “Where’s Dora?”

  “She’s seeing to Malcolm having breakfast. They’re in the kitchen nook. He told her you said that was all right.”

  “He did, did he?” I walked past her up to the stairway. “Send her up to see me. Right away,” I added.

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said, and turned to go to the kitchen.

  I went into the bathroom and washed my face with cold water. For a few moments, I stared at myself in the mirror. I hated how I looked. Garland’s compliments came only after he had drunk too much, I thought. Maybe he did see me as I was when I was younger, but he was looking through foggy eyes. This life, as effortless as it was for me, was aging me in subtle ways. When unhappiness gets into your blood, it deposits a darkness into your face. My mother unknowingly taught me that. The corners of my mouth drooped with self-disgust. My eyes had lost so much of their glow. I even hated my posture.

  “Make changes, Corrine Dixon,” I told the image in the mirror. “Make changes or rapidly become your mother.”

  I tossed the towel into the bathtub and charged out and to the Swan Room. Dora was already waiting there, oddly staring at the bed as if I were in it. She spun around when I entered.

  “Were you up when my husband returned?” I quickly asked.

  She shook her head.

  “You were still asleep, too?”

  “No, I was up, ma’am, but I didn’t see Mr. Foxworth. I saw only Lucas and helped him gather Mr. Foxworth’s things.”

  “Then he wasn’t waiting out in the carriage?”

  “I didn’t see him, ma’am.”

  I sat on the chaise and fell back against it. My head began to ache. I knew part of the reason was how much wine I had drunk after drinking so much champagne. Events had sobered me but not cleared the poison from my blood. One of the things my father had told me after he had found out Garland had given me too much of his limoncello was “Alcohol will never be your friend, Corrine. You had a very bad introduction to it, and for the rest of your life, your body will remember.”

  “Bring me some coffee,” I said.

  “And some breakfast?”

  “No, just some coffee for now. And the moment Lucas returns, send him up to see me. Immediately,” I said, raising my voice.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “As you obviously know, probably from him, I’ve forgiven Malcolm for now,” I said, squeezing my temples with my thumb and forefinger. “Start his lessons downstairs in the library after breakfast as usual.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He said something about a present…”

  “I’m not surprised he remembered that most of all. Tell him if he does his lessons well, I’ll give it to him later today.”

  “I will, ma’am. I’ll be right up with your coffee.”

  I nodded and closed my eyes again. I’ve got to change my life, I thought. I’ve got to change it now. I rose and went to my desk to write an invitation to Melinda Sue Carter, inviting her to lunch as soon as today, if she were so able to do so.

  Before Dora returned with my coffee and, probably at Mrs. Wilson’s insistence, some toast and jam, I put on my robe and fixed my oversized pillows so I could sit on my bed. Dora entered and put the bed tray over my legs.

  “Lucas has just returned and is taking care of the horses with Mr. Wilson.”

  “Tell him I have a letter for him to deliver today. You can send him up as soon as he is free.”

  “Up here, ma’am?”

  “It’s where I am, Dora,” I said sharply. I knew what she meant. It was quite unusual for me to have anyone other than Garland and her, and Malcolm, of course, in the Swan Room, especially when I was not fully dressed.

  “Very good, ma’am,” she said, and hurried out.

  After I began drinking my coffee, I was happy Mrs. Wilson had insisted on toast and jam as well. Ten minutes or so later, I heard a very tentative knock on my door.

  “Yes?”

  Lucas opened it slowly and looked in timidly at me. Seeing me on my bed brought an immediate blush to his face.

  “You can come in, Lucas,” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  He did, but he left the door open behind him. He stood there with his hat in his hands.

  “When you returned early this morning to fetch Mr. Foxworth’s clothing and whatever else he wanted, was he with you? Was he waiting in the carriage?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am. It was a bit chilly this morning.”

  “But he wasn’t in the house.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Then where was he, Lucas?”

  He looked like he had swallowed his tongue.

  “Did he tell you to keep it a secret?”

  “Oh, no, ma’am.”

  “Where was he? Where did you take him?”

  “The Caroline House, ma’am.”

  “You took him to a hotel for a business meeting at that hour?”

  He was silent.

  “Lucas?”

  “It’s where he wanted me to take him, Mrs. Foxworth.”

  “Did you go in with him?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “You waited in the carriage?”

  He looked very guilty suddenly.

  “Answer me, please, Lucas.”

  “I visited someone and then returned to the hotel.”

  “I see.”

  He was telling me he had a girlfriend, I thought.

  “But you did go back to the Caroline House?”

  “Yes, ma’am. When he told me to. When I arrived, he said that he had to stay there, but he had to leave on the early morning train, so I carried out his orders.”

  “Which included leaving his note for me on his desk?”

  “Yes, Mrs. Foxworth. I didn’t want to wake you, and I’m sorry if I did.”

  “You didn’t wake me. I wish you had,” I said. “Did he tell you any more about his emergency meeting?”

  “No, ma’am. I wouldn’t understand the ins and outs of his enterprises. I just deliver messages.”

  I looked at my coffee. Why make him suffer? I thought. He was obviously quite uncomfortable standing in the Swan Room and being cross-examined.

  “Okay, Lucas. Thank you for that information. I’d like you to deliver a letter to someone this morning.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I held out the envelope. “The address is there. You might know it.”

  He glanced at it. “I do, Mrs. Foxworth.”

  “Good. Thank you. Oh,” I said as he turned. “You can, if it is requested, remain until a response is written.”

  “I will, ma’am,” he said.

  He walked out and closed the door softly behind him. I glanced up at my swan.

  “Something tells me I will need y
our protection and help after all,” I whispered.

  Melinda Sue was obviously excited about my invitation. She wrote out her response as soon as she had read it and handed it to Lucas, who hurriedly brought it back.

  She would in fact come today.

  I quickly informed Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Steiner that I was having a luncheon for two. I decided the dining room would be too formal. Garland’s mother had put in new windows in the kitchen nook years ago, so there would be more sunlight. I thought the room was far cozier. Facing southwest, it would not be overwhelmingly bright that time of day. Olsen, who had the magical gardener’s hands, could provide us with garden mums in pastel tints to dress the table. I asked Lucas to tell him to do so.

  “We won’t be looking for a lot of food, Mrs. Wilson,” I told her. “Finger sandwiches, perhaps chicken salad and cucumber. Afterward, we’ll take tea in the library and have some of your applesauce cookies. For wine, we’ll have one of my husband’s Italian pinot grigio whites.”

  She looked a little surprised at my request for the wine.

  “Anything wrong?”

  “Oh, no, no. What else would you like, Mrs. Foxworth?”

  “I’d like us to use the informal dinnerware. Also, we will use the cloth napkins with the Foxworth insignia on them. My husband is quite proud of that. Place our settings so that we’re facing each other and neither has her back to the windows. Oh, and put out those salt and pepper shakers my husband brought back from Holland years ago.”

  Mrs. Wilson nodded, looking impressed with me and my attention to detail.

  “Very well, Mrs. Foxworth,” she said.

  When I left the kitchen, I glanced back and saw Mrs. Steiner and Mrs. Wilson smiling at each other. I was never really sure about what they thought of me, but from what I had learned about their lives, I felt confident they saw me as quite spoiled and self-indulgent. Perhaps I should have been doing more before this to win their respect. After all, with Garland’s devotion to his businesses and his traveling, I had spent more time with them than I had with him over the past few years.

  But with my duties as a mother absorbed by Dora and with Garland’s strict forbidding of my making any changes in the mansion, updating anything fashion-wise, what else could I be but self-absorbed? Nurturing my beauty and my own fashions and comfort, doing a little reading, taking walks on our property, and the small changes I could make in the Swan Room were all I had to fill my day. Whenever I accompanied Dora and Malcolm for his and actually my own exercise on walks and the occasional rowboat ride on the lake, I felt terribly extraneous. Most of the time, Malcolm behaved as if I wasn’t even there, and if Dora was distracted or returned to the house to get us something, he peppered me with so many silly questions that my head began to spin and I was grateful for her return.

  Maybe if Mrs. Steiner and Mrs. Wilson could see what a perfect hostess I could be without my husband present, their opinions of me would improve. Why that was so important right now puzzled me, but it was. It was as if I anticipated that someday soon I would need them to take my side of things. I would need their support. Goodness knows, my own mother wasn’t going to give me any.

  It was certainly long past the time to change things, to have a better relationship with my son and my husband, to garner the complete respect of my servants, and to expand and develop my own identity anyway. I had never been comfortable being known solely as Mrs. Garland Foxworth. I felt smothered at every social gathering we had attended, standing almost behind Garland and not being included in his political and business conversations. The other wives seemed vapid and meek. Their discussions of new tearoom china and the newest sanitary pads nearly nauseated me. I was almost always off to the side, ignored and grateful to be so. Their conversations reminded me of squawking geese. If I cleared my throat, they would stop, look at me, and then return to their conversations as if I weren’t there.

  Somehow, some way, I would bring back the independent and strong-willed young woman who had captured the imagination of most anyone who had spoken to or seen her before she had been married. I easily imagined her waiting outside the grand front doorway of Foxworth Hall, waiting to come in.

  After Dora had completed a lesson with Malcolm, I told her she could bring him to the ballroom. I had changed and pinned up my hair for my luncheon with Melinda Sue. I found Garland’s present for Malcolm near his desk and brought it into the ballroom, where Dora and Malcolm already were. She seemed almost as excited about it as he was.

  “This is not a reward for your saying you’re sorry about what you did, Malcolm. Your father was hoping we three could have a special celebration about his good business fortune, a family celebration,” I added, eyeing Dora. “He was quite upset about what you had done to his and my wedding album and then what you had done to me, and he almost took this back to where he bought it.”

  Malcolm looked down. I doubted he was going to cry, but he could look like he was about to and tear the sympathy out of most anyone’s vulnerable heart. Dora kept her hand on his shoulder, and I saw she squeezed tighter to keep up his bravery, not that he needed her to do it.

  “Now, both Dora and I are upset over what you did to yourself. And of course your father will be when he hears about it. We hope you will never do anything like that again.”

  He looked up and shook his head. “No, Mama, never.”

  “Good. So now, you open this, and until we need the ballroom for an affair, you can set it up here so you have lots of room to play with it. Dora and I will watch you do it yourself to see how clever you are,” I added, looking at Dora and clearly telling her that she should do nothing to help him. She stepped back a little when I handed Malcolm the box.

  He sat down on the floor instantly and began tearing away the tape that kept the box closed. His eyes were lit with excitement. When he opened it up, he paused, looked at me and then Dora with that Foxworth confidence, and reached in to take out the train tracks. We watched him study them and then begin to put them together. Dora smiled at me just the way a proud parent might, seizing the moment before I could.

  After he had the train tracks circle created, he inspected the engine. He reminded me of Garland whenever he was intensely into his paperwork. His face was tight with the same sort of concentration. A real train could come plowing through the house and Malcolm wouldn’t break his absorption in what he was doing. He carefully lined up the cars and the caboose behind them on those tracks. There was a switch on the engine that kept the wheels from turning until he had wound it up.

  “Don’t overwind it, Malcolm,” I warned. “I did that once with a toy, a figurine of a ballerina my father had bought me, and no one could fix it,” I explained, mostly to Dora.

  Malcolm nodded, his expression as serious as a doctor about to sew up a wounded soldier. After he was done attaching it all, he looked up at me, expecting a compliment. He deserved one, but I hated that he made his demand for it so obvious. Humility would starve to death in this house, I thought.

  “That’s very, very good, Malcolm.”

  He nodded, of course agreeing, and then he threw the switch and the train started around the tracks. There was a toy village in the box as well, and when the train stopped, he began to put that together before he wound the engine again. He was a picturesque little boy, totally into his imagination. He looked like he could be on a magazine cover. Why couldn’t he always be this bright and sweet?

  “I have some toy soldiers upstairs in my room. I might put them here, and I have horses and cows and pigs, too, Mama, and all those cars Daddy brought home from different places.”

  “Make it as big as you want,” I said. “We’re not having any parties in the ballroom for some time. Perhaps at Christmas as usual,” I added. Dora nodded. “Mrs. Steiner didn’t receive any plans for such an event?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. She hasn’t mentioned it to me.”

  “Nor to me. What’s new about that?” I mumbled.

  I looked at the clock and nodded
at her.

  “I have a guest for lunch,” I said. “Remember, he should do his letters later today, too. You must do your lessons, Malcolm, or we’ll put it all back in the box,” I warned.

  He looked up, saw I was very serious, and nodded. “I will, Mama,” he said. “I promise.”

  “Good.”

  What man doesn’t make promises he would easily break, I thought, even at nearly five?

  I went out to the living room to wait for Melinda Sue. She was just a little late, and the moment she entered, she began with incessant apologies for it until I assured her I was often late myself.

  “Besides, what woman isn’t a little late when she’s preparing herself to go out in public?” I said.

  It was obvious she had, even in the short time between my invitation and her arrival, taken great care with her appearance. Perhaps, I thought, she was like a fireman, always ready on instant notice. On the other hand, she might have canceled another invitation to come to me or, more important, Foxworth Hall.

  Her dark-brown hair was dressed fairly close to her head with curled fringe at the forehead and fairly high buns. She wore a triple-strand necklace and small pearl drop-bead earrings and what looked like an ostrich-feather puff aigrette. Whether she had her hair ready for an invitation like mine or not, I felt my hair was quite underdressed in comparison. Was it proper for a guest to outdress her hostess? I thought I looked more like one of the servants right now.

  Like me, she did not wear a bustle. Her pink skirt was flared smoothly over her hips from a handspan waist and gradually widened at the hemline. After Mrs. Steiner, who had rushed to greet my guest, took her cashmere cloak, I saw that the sleeves of her blouse were far slimmer than mine, and she wore a cravat with a stick-pin bar brooch. Despite my keeping up with fashions in newspapers, I felt truly out of step with what was happening now. Half the time, I didn’t trust the salesladies at the department store. They were anxious to get rid of what wasn’t selling, and I was a prime possibility for sure.

  “How pretty you look,” I said. “Truthfully, I don’t know how you did all this in the time you had. Only a man could do that. They have it so easy.”