Read Ruby Online

Authors: V. C. Andrews

Tags: #Horror

Ruby (7 page)

BOOK: Ruby
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"It was that bully, Turner Browne, Grandmere. He--"
She lifted her hand, rose from her seat, and went to the counter where she had some of her poultices set out as if she had anticipated our dramatic arrival. It was eerie. Even Paul was speechless.
"Sit down," she told him, pointing to a chair. "After I treat him, you can tell me all about it."
Paul looked at me, his eyes wide, and then moved to the seat to let Grandmere Catherine work her miracles.

4
Learning to Be
a Liar
.
"Here," Grandmere Catherine told Paul, "keep

this pressed against your cheek with one hand and this pressed against your lip with the other." She handed him two warm cloths over which she had smeared one of her secret salves. When Paul took the cloths, I saw the knuckles on his right hand were all bruised and scraped as well.

"Look at his hand, too, Grandmere," I cried.

"It's nothing," Paul said. "When I was rolling around on the floor--"
"Rolling around on the floor? At the
fais dodo?
" Grandmere asked. He nodded and then started to speak. "We were having some gumbo and--"
"Hold those tight," she ordered. While he was holding the cloth against his lip, he couldn't talk, so I spoke for him, quickly.
"It was Turner Browne. He said one nasty thing after another just to show off in front of his friends," I told her.
"What sort of nasty things?" she demanded.
"You know, Grandmere. Bad things."
She stared at me a moment and then looked at Paul. It wasn't easy to keep anything from Grandmere Catherine.
For as long as I could remember, she had a way of seeing right into your heart and soul.
"He made nasty remarks about your mother?" Grandmere asked. I shifted my eyes away which was as good as saying yes. She took a deep breath, her hand against her heart and nodded. "They won't let it go. They cling to other people's hard times like moss clings to damp wood." She shook her head again and shuffled away, her hand still on her heart.
I looked at Paul. His sad eyes told me how sorry he was he had lost his temper. He started to take the cloth off his lip to say so, but I put my hand over his quickly. Paul smiled at me with his eyes, even though his lips had to be kept in a straight line.
"Just hold it there like Grandmere said," I told him. She looked back at us. I kept my hand over his and smiled. "He was very brave, Grandmere. You know how big Turner Browne is, but Paul didn't care."
"He looks it," she said, and shook her head. "Your Grandpere Jack wasn't much different and still isn't. I wish I had a pretty penny for every time I had to prepare a poultice to treat the injuries he suffered in one of his brawls. One time he came home with his right eye shut tight, and an-other time, he had a piece of his ear bitten off. You'd think that would make him think twice before getting into any more such conflicts, but not that man. He was at the end of the line when they passed out good sense," she concluded.
The rain that had been pounding on our tin roof subsided until we could hear only a slight
tap, tap, tap,
and the wind had died down considerably. Grandmere opened the batten plank shutters to let the breeze travel through our house again. She took a deep breath.
"I do love the way the bayou smells after a good rain. It makes everything fresh and clean. I wish it would do the same to people," she said, and sighed deeply, Her eyes were still dark and troubled. I never had heard her sound so sad and tired. A kind of paralyzing numbness gripped me and for a moment, I could only sit there and listen to my heart pound. Grandmere suddenly shuddered and embraced herself.
"Are you all right, Grandmere?"
"What? Yes, yes. Okay," she said, moving to Paul. "Let me look at you."
He took the cloths from his lips and cheek and she scrutinized his face. The swelling had subsided, but his cheek was still crimson and his lower lip dark where Turner Browne's fist had split the skin. Grandmere Catherine nodded and then went to the icebox and chipped out a small chunk to wrap in another washcloth.
"Here," she said, returning. "Put this on your cheek until it gets too cold and then put it on your lip. Keep alternating until the ice melts away,
understand?"
"Yes, ma'am," Paul said. "Thank you. I'm sorry all this happened. I should have just ignored Turner Browne."
Grandmere Catherine held her eyes on him a moment and then relaxed her expression.
"Sometimes you can't ignore; sometimes the evil won't leave," she said, "But that doesn't mean I expect to see you in any more fights," she warned. He nodded obediently.
"You won't," he promised.
"Hmm," she said. "I wish I had another pretty penny for how many times my husband has made the same promise."
"I keep mine," Paul said proudly. Grandmere liked that and finally smiled.
"We'll see," she said.
"I better get going," Paul declared, standing. "Thanks again, Mrs. Landry."
Grandmere Catherine nodded.
"I'll walk you to the car, Paul," I said. When we stepped out on the galerie, we saw the rain had nearly stopped. The sky was still quite dark, but the glow from the galerie's dangling naked bulb threw a stream of pale white light to Paul's car. Still holding the ice pack against his cheek, he took my hand with his free hand and we walked over the pathway.
"I do feel terrible about ruining the evening," he said. "You didn't ruin it; Turner Browne ruined it. Besides, we got in plenty of dancing first," I added.
"It was fun, wasn't it?"
"You know," I said. "This was my first real date."
"Really? I used to think you had a stream of boyfriends knocking on your door, and you wouldn't give me the time of day," he confessed. "It took all the courage I could muster, more courage than it took to attack Turner Browne, for me to walk up to you that afternoon at school and ask to carry your books and walk you home."
"I know. I remember how your lips trembled, but I thought that was adorable."
"You did? Well, then I'll just continue to be the shyest young man you ever did see."
"As long as you're not too shy to kiss me now and then," I replied. He smiled and grimaced with the pain it caused to stretch his lip. "Poor Paul," I said, and leaned forward to kiss him ever so gently on that wounded mouth. His eyes were still closed when I pulled back. Then they popped open.
"That's the best poultice, even better than your grandmother's magical medicines. I'm going to have to come around every day and get another treatment," he said.
"It will cost you," I warned.
"How much?"
"Your undying devotion," I replied. His eyes riveted on me.
"You already have that, Ruby," he whispered, "and always will."
Then he leaned forward, disregarding the pain, and kissed me warmly on the lips.
"Funny," he said, opening his car door, "but even with this bruised cheek and split lip, I think this was one of the best nights of my life. Good night, Ruby."
"Good night. Don't forget to keep that ice on your lip like Grandmere told you to," I advised.
"I won't. Thank her again for me. See you tomorrow," he promised, and started his engine. I watched him back away. He waved and then drove into the night. I stood watching until the small red lights on the rear of his car were swallowed by the darkness. Then I turned, embracing myself, and saw Grandmere Catherine standing on the edge of the galerie looking out at me. How long had she been there? I wondered. Why was she waiting like that?
"Grandmere? Are you all right?" I asked when I approached. Her face was so gloomy. She looked pale, forlorn, and as if she had just seen one of the spirits she was employed to chase away. Her eyes stared at me bleakly. Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache in anticipation.
"Come on inside," she said. "I have something to tell you, something I should have told you long ago."
My legs felt as stiff as tree stumps as I went up the stairs and into the house. My heart, which had been beating with pleasure after Paul's last kiss, beat harder, deeper, thumped deep down into my very soul. I couldn't remember ever seeing such a look of melancholy and sadness on Grandmere Catherine's face. What great burden did she carry? What terrible thing was she about to tell me?
She sat down and stared ahead for a long time as though she'd forgotten I was there. I waited, my hands in my lap, my heart still pounding.
"There was always a wildness in your mother," she began. "Maybe it was the Landry blood, maybe it was the way she grew up, always close to wild things. Unlike most girls her age, she was never afraid of anything in the swamp. She would pick up a baby snake as quickly as she would pick a daisy.
"In the early days, Grandpere Jack took her everywhere he went in the bayou. She fished with him, hunted with him, poled the pirogue when she was just tall enough to stand and push the stick into the mud. I used to think she was going to be a tomboy. However," she said, focusing her eyes on me now, "she was to be anything but a tomboy. Maybe it would have been better if she had been less feminine.
"She grew quickly, blossomed into a flower of womanhood way before her time, and those dark eyes of hers, her long, flowing hair as rich and red as yours, enchanted men and boys alike. I even think she fascinated the birds and animals of the swamp. Often," she said, smiling at her memory, "I would see a marsh hawk peering down with yellow-circled eyes to follow her with his gaze as she walked along the shore of the canal.
"So innocent and so beautiful, she was eager to touch everything, see everything, experience everything. Alas, she was vulnerable to older, shrewder people, and thus, she was tempted to drink from the cup of sinful pleasure.
"By the time she was sixteen, she was very popular and asked to go everywhere by every boy in the bayou. They all pleaded with her for some attention. I saw the way she teased and tormented some who were absolutely in agony over her smile, her laugh, dying for her to say something promising to them whenever they came around.
"She had young boys doing all her chores, even lining up to help Grandpere Jack, who wasn't above taking advantage of the poor souls,I might add. He knew they hoped to court Gabrielle's favor by slaving for him and he had them doing more for him than they did for their own fathers. It was downright criminal of him, but he wouldn't listen to me.
"Anyway, one night, about seven months after her sixteenth birthday, Gabrielle came to me in this very room. She was sitting right where you're sitting now. When I looked up at her, I didn't need to hear what she was going to say. She was no more than a windowpane, easy to read. My heart did flip-flops; I held my breath.
"Mama,' she said, her voice cracking, 'I think I'm pregnant.' I closed my eyes and sat back. It was as though the inevitable had occurred, what I had feared and felt might happen, had happened.
"As you know we're Catholics; we don't go to no shack butchers and abort our pregnancies. I asked her who was the father and she just shook her head and ran from me. Later, when Grandpere Jack came home and heard, he went wild. He nearly beat her to death before I stopped him, but he got out of her who the father was," she said, and raised her eyes slowly.
Was that thunder I heard, or was it blood thundering through my veins and roaring in my ears?
"Who was it, Grandmere?" I asked, my voice cracking, my throat choking up quickly.
"It was Octavious Tate who had seduced her," she said, and once again it was as if thunder shook the house, shook the very foundations of our world and shattered the fragile walls of my heart and soul. I could not speak; I could not ask the next question, but Grandmere had decided I was to know it all.
"Grandpere Jack went to him directly. Octavious had been married less than a year and his father was alive then. Your Grandpere Jack was an even bigger gambler in those days. He couldn't pass up a game of bourre even though most times he was the one stuffing the pot. One time he lost his boots and had to walk home barefoot. And another time, he wagered a gold tooth and had to sit and let someone pull it out with a pliers. That's how sick a gambler he was and still is.
"Anyway, he got the Tates to pay him to keep things silent and part of the bargain was that Octavious would take the child and bring it up as his own. What he told his new wife and how they worked it out between them, we never knew, didn't care to know.
"I kept your mother's pregnancy hidden, strapping her up when she started to show in the seventh month. By then it was summer and she didn't have to attend school. We kept her here at the house most of the time. During the final three weeks, she stayed inside mostly and we told everyone that she had gone to visit her cousins in Iberia.
"The baby, a healthy boy, was born and delivered to Octavious Tate. Grandpere Jack got his money and lost it in less than a week, but the secret was kept.
"Up until now, that is," she said, lowering her head. "I had hoped never to have to tell you. You already know what your mother did later on. I didn't want you to think terrible of her and then think terrible of yourself.
"But I never counted on you and Paul. . . becoming more than just friends," she added. "When I saw you two kiss out by his car before, I knew you had to be told," she concluded.
"Then Paul and I are half brother and half sister?" I asked with a gasp. She nodded. "But he doesn't know any of this?"
"As I told you, we didn't know how the Tates dealt with it."
I buried my face in my hands. The tears that burned beneath my lids seemed to be falling inside me as well, making my stomach icy and cold. I shivered and rocked.
"Oh, God, how horrible, oh, God," I moaned.
"You see and understand why I had to tell you, don't you, Ruby dear?" Grandmere Catherine asked. I could feel how troubled she was by making the revelation, how much it bothered her to see me in such pain. I nodded quickly. "You must not let things go any further between the two of you, but it's not your place to tell him what I've told you. It's something his own father must tell him."
"It will destroy him," I said, shaking my head. "It will crack his heart in two, just as it has cracked mine."
"Then don't tell him, Ruby," Grandmere Catherine advised. I looked up at her. "Just let it all end."
"How, Grandmere? We like each other so much. Paul is so gentle and kind and--"
"Let him think you don't care about him anymore like that, Ruby. Let him go and he'll find another girlfriend soon enough. He's a handsome boy. Besides, his parents will only give him more grief if you don't, especially, his father, and you will only succeed in breaking the Tates apart."
"His father is a monster, a monster. How could he have done such a thing when he was married for such a short time?" I demanded, my anger
overcoming my sadness for the moment.
"I make no excuses for him. He was a grown man and Gabrielle was just an impressionable young girl, but so beautiful, it didn't surprise me that grown men longed for her. The devil, the evil spirit that hovers in the shadows, crept over Octavious Tate day by day, I'm sure, and eventually found entrance into his heart and drove him to seduce your mother."
"Paul would hate him, he would hate his own father if he knew," I said vehemently. Grandmere nodded.
"Do you want to do that, Ruby? Do you want to be the one who puts enmity in his heart and drives him to despise his own father?" she asked softly. "And what will Paul feel about the woman he thinks is his mother? What will you do to that relationship, too?"

BOOK: Ruby
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