The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (101 page)

“Did you ever go and take a look in the attic?”

“No. I wanted to, but the double doors at the top of the stairs were always locked. And besides, all attics are alike; see one and
you’ve seen them all.” He flashed me a wicked smile. “And now that I’ve revealed so much about myself—tell me about you. Where were you born? Where did you go to school? What made you take up dancing—and why haven’t you ever attended one of those balls the Foxworths throw on Christmas night?”

I sweated, though I was cold. “Why should I tell you everything about myself. Just because you sat there and revealed a
little
about yourself? You didn’t tell me anything of real importance. Where were
you
born? What made
you
decide to become an attorney? How did you meet your wife? Was it in the summer, the winter, what year? Did you know she’d been married before, or did she tell you only after you were married?”

“Nosy little thing, aren’t you? What difference does it make where I was born. I haven’t led an exciting life like you have. I was born in the nothing little town called Greenglenna, South Carolina. The Civil War ended the prosperous days of my ancestors, and we went steadily downhill, as did all the friends of the family. But it’s an old story, told so many times. Then I married a Foxworth lady and prosperity reigned again in the South. My wife took my ancestral home and practically had it reconstructed, and refurbished, and spent more than if she had bought a new place. And what was I doing during all of this? A top grad from Harvard running around the world with his wife. I’ve done very little with my education; I’ve become a social butterfly. I’ve had a few court cases and I helped you with your difficulties. And, by the way, you never paid the fee I had in mind.”

“I mailed you a check for two hundred dollars!” I objected hotly. “If that wasn’t enough, please don’t tell me now; I don’t have another two hundred to give away.”

“Have I mentioned money? Money means little to me now that I have so much of it at my disposal. In your special case I had another kind of fee in mind.”

“Oh, come off it, Bart Winslow! You’ve brought me way out into the country. Now do you want to make love on the grass? Is it your lifelong ambition to make love to a former
ballerina? I don’t give sex away and I don’t pay any bills that way. And what’s so attractive about you, a lap dog for a pampered, spoiled, rich woman who can buy anything she wants—including a much younger husband! Why, it’s a wonder she didn’t put a ring through your nose to lead you around and make you sit up and beg!”

He seized me then hard and ruthlessly, then pressed his lips down on mine with a savagery that hurt! I fought him off with my fists, battering his arms as I tried to twist my head from beneath his, but whichever way my head went, right or left, up or down, he kept his kiss, demanding my lips to separate and yield to his tongue! Then, realizing I couldn’t escape the arms of steel he banded about me to mold my form to his, against my will, my arms stole up around his neck. My unruly fingers betrayed me and twined into his thick, dark hair, and that kiss lasted, and lasted, and lasted until both of us were hot and panting—and then he thrust me from him so cruelly I almost fell from the bench.

“Well, little Miss Muffet—what kind of lap dog do you call me now? Or are you Little Red Riding Hood who has just met the wolf?”

“Take me home!”

“I’ll take you home—but not until I’ve enjoyed a little more of what you just gave.” He lunged again to seize me, but I was up and running, running for his car, running to seize my purse so that when he got there I held my manicuring scissors ready to stab with.

He grinned, reached out and wrested them from me. “They would deliver a nasty scratch,” he mocked. “But I don’t like scratches except on my back. When I let you out you can have your little two-inch scissors back again.”

In front of my cottage he handed me the scissors. “Now, do your worst. Cut out my eyes; stab me in the heart—you might as well. Your kiss has begun it, but I still demand my total payment.”

E
arly on a Sunday morning a few days later I was warming up at the barre in my bedroom. My small son was earnestly trying to do as I did. It was sweet to watch him in the mirror I’d moved from the dresser over to the barre.

“Am I dancing?” asked Jory.

“Yes, Jory.
You are dancing!”

“Am I good?”

“Yes, Jory.
You are wonderful!”

He laughed and hugged my legs and looked up into my face with that ecstatic rapture only the very young can express—all the wonder of being alive was in his eyes, all the wonder of learning something new every day. “I love you, Mommy!” It was something we said to each other a dozen or more times each day. “Mary’s got a daddy. Why don’t I have a daddy?”

That really hurt. “You did have a daddy, Jory, but he went away to heaven. And maybe someday Mommy will find you a new daddy.”

He smiled because he was pleased. Daddy’s were big in his
world, for all the children in the nursery school had one . . . all but Jory.

Just then I heard the front door bang. A familiar voice called my name. Chris! He strode through the small house as I hurried toward him in my blue tights, leotards and
pointe
shoes. Our eyes met and locked. Without a word he held out his arms and I ran unhesitatingly into them, and though he sought my lips to kiss he found only my cheek. Jory was pulling on his gray flannel trousers, eager to be swept up in strong, manly arms. “How’s my Jory?” asked Chris after he kissed both round, rosy cheeks. My son’s eyes were huge as they stared at him. “Uncle Chris, are you my daddy?”

“No,” he said gruffly, putting Jory again on his small feet, “but I sure wish I had a son like you.” This made me shift around uncomfortably so he couldn’t see my eyes, and then I asked what he was doing here when he should be attending his patients.

“Got the weekend off, so I thought I’d spend it with you; that is, if you’ll let me.” I nodded weakly, thinking of someone else who was likely to come this weekend. “I was as good as a resident can be and was rewarded and given a weekend without duty.” He gave me one of his most winning smiles. “Have you heard from Paul?” I asked. “He doesn’t come as often as he used to, and he doesn’t write much either.”

“He’s away on another medical convention. I thought he always kept in touch with you.”

He put just a little stress on the “you.” “Chris, I’m worried about Paul. It isn’t like him not to answer every letter I write.”

He laughed and fell into a chair, then lifted Jory up on his lap. “Maybe, dear sister, you have finally met a man who can get over loving you.”

Now I didn’t know what to say or what to do with my legs and hands. I sat and stared down at the floor, feeling Chris’s long, steady gaze trying to read my intentions. No sooner did I think that than he was asking, “Cathy, what are you doing
here in the mountains? What are you planning? Is it your scheme to take Bart Winslow from our mother?”

My head jerked up. I met his narrowed blue eyes and felt the heat that sprang up from my heart. “Don’t question me like I’m some ten-year-old without a brain. I do what I have to—just as you do.”

“Sure, you do. I didn’t have to ask, I know. It doesn’t take a crystal ball to read you. I know what makes you tick and how your thoughts range—but leave Bart Winslow alone! He’ll never leave her for you! She’s got the millions and all you have is youth. There are thousands of younger women he can choose from—why should he choose you?”

I didn’t say anything, just met his scowling look with my own confident smile, making him flush, then turn aside his face. I felt mean, cruel and ashamed. “Chris, let’s not argue. Let’s be friends and allies. You and I are all that’s left out of four.”

His blue eyes grew soft as they studied me. “I was only trying, as I am always trying.” He looked around, then back to me. “I share a room with another resident at the hospital. It would be nice if I could live here with you and Jory. It would be like it used to be, just us.”

What he said made me stiffen. “It would be a long drive for you every morning, and you couldn’t be on immediate call.”

He sighed. “I know—but how about the weekends? Every other weekend I have off-duty time—would that bug you too much?”

“Yes, it would bug me too much. I have a life of my own, Christopher.”

I watched him bite down on his lower lip before he forced a smile. “Okay, have it your way . . . do what you must, and I hope to God you won’t be sorry.”

“Will you please drop the subject?” I smiled and went to him and hugged him close. “Be good. Take me as I am, obstinate as Carrie. Now, what would you like for lunch?”

“I haven’t had breakfast yet.”

“Then we’ll eat brunch—and that can do for two meals.” From then on the day went swiftly. On Sunday morning he came to the table ready for the cheese omelet he favored. Jory, thank God, would eat anything. Despite myself I thought of Chris as a father to Jory. It seemed so right to have him at the table, like it used to be . . . him and I playing at being parents. Doing the best we could, all we could, and we had been only children ourselves.

We ambled through the woods after breakfast, using all the trails I followed when I jogged. Jory rode on Chris’s shoulder. We looked at the world that was just outside Foxworth Hall, all the places we hadn’t been able to see when we were on the roof or locked away. Together we stood and stared at that huge mansion. “Is Momma in there?” he asked in a tight thick voice.

“No. I’ve heard she’s down in Texas in one of those beauty spas for very wealthy women, trying to lose fifteen extra pounds.”

Alerted, he swiveled his head. “Who told you that?”

“Who do you think?”

He shook his head violently, then lifted Jory down and set him on his feet. “Damn you for playing with him, Cathy! I’ve seen him. He’s dangerous—leave him alone. Go back to Paul and marry him if you must have a man in your life. Let our mother live out her life in peace. You don’t believe for one moment, do you, that she doesn’t suffer? Do you think she can be happy knowing what she did? All the money in the world can’t give her back what she’s lost—and that is
us
! Let that be enough revenge.”

“It isn’t enough. I want to confront her in front of Bart with the truth. And you can stay one hundred years and get down on your knees and plead until your tongue falls out—I will still go ahead and do what I must!”

*  *  *

The time Chris stayed with me he slept in the room that had been Carrie’s. We did very little talking, though his eyes
followed my every movement. He looked drained, lost . . . and, most of all, hurt. I wanted to tell him that when I’d finished what I had to do I’d go back to Paul and have a safe life with him, and Jory would have the father he needed, but I said nothing.

Mountain nights were cold, even in September when the days were warm still. In that attic we’d nearly melted from the sweltering heat, and I guess this was on both our minds as we sat before the guttering log fire on the night before Chris had to leave. My son had been in bed for hours when I rose, yawned, stretched wide my arms, then glanced at the clock on the mantel which read eleven. “It’s time for bed, Chris. Especially for you who has to get up so early tomorrow.”

He followed me toward Jory’s room without speaking and together we looked down on Jory, sleeping on his side, his dark curls damp and his face flushed. In his arms he cuddled a stuffed, plushy pony, much like the real one he said he had to have when he was four.

“When he’s sleeping he looks more like you than Julian,” whispered Chris. Paul had said the same thing.

“Good night, Christopher Doll,” I said as we paused by the door of Carrie’s room, “sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

What I said made his face contort in pain. He turned from me, opened the door to Carrie’s room, then swung back to face me. “That’s the way we used to say good night when we slept in the same room,” he said, then he turned and closed the door behind him.

*  *  *

Chris was gone by the time I got up at seven o’clock. I cried a little. Jory stared at me with widened, surprised eyes. “Mommy . . . ?” he asked fearfully.

“It’s all right. Mommy just misses your uncle Chris. And Mommy is not going to work today.” No, why should I? Only
three students were due and I could teach them tomorrow when the class would be full.

My plans were moving too slowly. To speed them up I asked Emma to come and stay with Jory while I jogged through the woods. “I won’t be gone longer than an hour. Let him play outside until lunchtime, and by then I’ll be back.”

Dressed in a bright blue jogging outfit trimmed with white, I set off down the dirt trails. This time I used a right fork I’d never tried before and into a denser pine forest I ran. The trail was faint and jaggedly crooked, so I had to keep a keen eye on the ground for tree roots that might trip me up. The mountain trees that grew between the pines were a brilliant blaze of fall colors, like fire against the emerald green of the pines, firs and spruces. And it was, as I’d told myself long ago, the year’s last passionate love affair before it grew old and died from the frosty bite of winter.