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! (200 page)

“You won’t let Bart in on any of this?” she asked suspiciously.

“No, darling. Bart has proven he doesn’t reason when it comes to you. Ever since the day you joined our family he’s resented you, and at this late date there doesn’t seem to be much any of us can do about that. As for Joel, I don’t like him, either, and he has no place in our family discussion about your future.”

Suddenly she flung her arms about my neck. “Oh, Momma, I’m so ashamed I said so many ugly things. I wanted to hurt you the other day because Bart had shamed me so much. Save me from Bart, Momma. Find a way, please, please.”

After Chris, Jory, Cindy, and I talked, we found a way to save Cindy not only from Bart but from herself. I tried to calm Bart, who wanted to punish her more drastically.

“She’s only adding fuel to the fire already burning in the village,” he shouted when I entered his office. “I try to lead a decent, God-fearing life—now don’t you yell at me and say you’ve heard differently. I’ll admit I was rolling in filth for a while, but things have changed. I didn’t enjoy those women. Melodie was the only one who gave me anything that approached love.”

I tried to keep the frown from my face. How easily he had turned away from her once he knew he had her loving him . . .

Looking around at all the valuables in his office, I wondered again if Bart didn’t love things more than he loved people; I stared at the luxurious antique Orientals that he’d purchase at auctions, costing hundreds of thousands. His furniture put that in the White House to shame. He
would
be the wealthiest man in the world if he kept doubling his five hundred thousand a year every few months, the way he was somehow managing to do now. Even before he came fully “into his own” he’d have made his billion or so. He was clever, quick, brilliant. What a pity he couldn’t be more to mankind than just another greedy, selfish millionaire.

“Leave now, Mother. You waste my time.” He swiveled his chair around and stared out at the beautiful gardens now in full bloom. “Send Cindy away—anywhere. Just get her out of my hair.”

“Cindy told us last night she’d like to spend the remainder of the summer in a New England drama school. She had the name and address of the one she preferred. Chris called to check them out, and they seem reliable and have a good reputation. So she’s leaving in three days.”

“Good riddance to rubbish,” he said indifferently.

Standing, I threw him a look of pity. “Before you condemn Cindy so harshly, Bart, think about yourself. Has she done any worse than you have?”

He began to use his computer without replying.

I slammed the door behind me.

*  *  *

Three days later I was helping Cindy finish her packing. We’d been shopping, so she had more than enough casual clothes, six pairs of new shoes, and two new swimsuits. She kissed Jory good-bye, then lingered with the twins cuddled in her arms. “Dear little babies,” she crooned, “I’ll be back. I’ll sneak in and out and won’t let Bart even see me. Jory, you should get away from here, too. Momma, you and Daddy go
with him.” Reluctantly she put the twins back in their play pen and came to hug and kiss me. I was already crying. I was losing my daughter. I knew from the way she looked at me that nothing between us would ever be quite the same again.

Still she came to me and hugged me. “Daddy’s going to drive me to the airport,” she said as she bowed her head on my shoulder. “You can come too, if you don’t cry and feel sorry for me, because I’m happier than any lark to be free of this damned house. And take me seriously for once—get Jory and yourselves free of this house. It’s an evil house, and now I hate its spirit just as much as once I loved its beauty.”

We drove to the airport without Cindy bidding Bart or Joel farewell.

Without another word to me, her remote expression told me everything. She was warmer with Chris, kissing him goodbye. She only waved to me as she raced toward her departure gate. “Don’t hang around and wait for my plane to take off. I’m boarding it gladly.”

“You will write?” Chris asked.

“Naturally, when I can find time.”

“Cindy,” I called despite myself, wanting to protect her again, “write at least once a week. We care about what happens to you. We’ll be here to do what we can when you need us. And sooner or later, Bart will find what he’s looking for. He’ll change. I’ll see to it that he changes. I’ll do anything I have to so we can be a family again.”

“He won’t find his soul, Momma,” she called back coolly, backing away even farther. “He was born without one.”

Before her plane left the ground, my tears stopped flowing and my determination hardened into concrete.
Indeed, before I died, I was going to see my family united,
made whole and healthy—if it took the rest of my life.

Chris made attempts to pull me out of my depression as he drove me back to what had to be called “home.” “How’s the nurse making out?”

My concern for Cindy had kept me so involved that I’d paid little attention to the beautiful, dark-haired nurse Chris had recently hired to live in and help with the twins and Jory. She’d been in the house a few days and I’d hardly said more than six words to her.

“What does Jory think of Toni?” he asked. “I took considerable pains looking for just the right one. In my opinion, she’s a real find.”

“I don’t think he’s even looked at her, Chris. He stays so busy with his painting and the babies. They’re just beginning to crawl without so much effort. Why, yesterday I saw Cory—I mean Darren—pick up a bug from the grass and try to put it in his mouth. It was Toni who ran to prevent that. I don’t recall Jory even looking at her.”

“He will, sooner or later. And Cathy, you’ve got to stop thinking of his twins as Cory and Carrie. If Jory hears you call them Cory or Carrie he’ll be angry. They are not
our
twins—they are Jory’s.”

Chris said nothing more during the long drive back to Foxworth Hall, not even when he turned into our long drive and then drove slowly into the garage.

*  *  *

“What’s going on in this crazy house?” Jory asked as soon as I stepped onto the terrace, where he was seated on an athletic mat put on the flagstones. The twins were with him, playing happily in the sunshine. “Shortly after you left to drive Cindy to the airport, a crew of construction workers arrived and knocked and banged away in that downstairs room Joel likes to pray in. I didn’t see Bart, and I didn’t want to talk to Joel. And then there’s something else—”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“It’s that damned nurse you and Dad hired, Mom. She’s gorgeous and she’s good at her job—when I can get hold of her. I’ve been calling for ten minutes and she hasn’t responded.
The twins are dripping wet, and she didn’t bring out enough diapers so I can change them again. I can’t go in the house and get more without leaving them alone. They scream now when I try to put them in the slings. They want to be on their own. Especially Deirdre.”

I diapered the twins myself and put them down for naps, then went in search of the newest member in our household.

To my astonishment I found her in the new swimming pool with Bart, both of them laughing, splashing water at one another.

“Hi, Mother!” called Bart, looking tan and healthy, and happier than I’d seen him since the days when he had believed himself in love with Melodie. “Toni plays a super game of tennis. It’s great having her here. We were both so hot after all that exercise that we decided to cool off in the pool.”

The look in my eyes was read clearly by Antonia Winters. Immediately she clambered out of the pool and began to dry off. She toweled her dark curly hair dry, then wrapped her red bikini with the same white towel. “Bart has asked me to call him by his first name. You won’t mind if I do that, will you, Mrs. Sheffield?”

I looked her over appraisingly, wondering if she was truly responsible enough to take care of Jory and the twins. I liked her dark hair that sprang immediately into soft waves and curls to frame her face becomingly without makeup. She was about five eight and had as many voluptuous curves as Cindy, curves that Bart had despised on his sister. But from the way he was looking at the nurse, he approved of her figure very much.

“Toni,” I began with control, “Jory, who I hired you to help, tried to call you to bring more diapers for the twins. He was out on the terrace with his children, and you should have been with
him,
not Bart. We hired you expecting you’d see that neither Jory or his children would be neglected.”

Embarrassment heated her face. “I’m sorry, but Bart . . .”
and here she hesitated, seeming flustered as she glanced at him.

“It’s all right, Toni. I accept the blame, “ said Bart. “I told her Jory was fine and able to take care of himself and the twins. It seems to me he has made a big point of being independent.”

“See that this doesn’t happen again, Toni,” I said, disregarding Bart.

That damned man was going to drive all of us batty! Then I had a brilliant idea. “Bart, you and Toni would have done Jory a great favor if you had included him in your swimming party. He has full use of his arms. In fact, he has very powerful arms. And you should remember, Bart, that it’s rather dangerous to have a pool like this without a fence, when two small children are around. So, Toni, with Jory’s help, I’d like you both to begin teaching the twins how to swim . . . just in case.”

Thoughtfully Bart stared at me, seeming to read my mind. He glanced again at Antonia, who was striding toward the house. “So you’re going to stay on—why?”

“Don’t you want us to stay?”

His smile radiated his dead father’s charm. “Why, yes, of course, I do. Now that Toni has come to brighten up my lonely hours.”

“You leave her alone, Bart!”

He grinned at me wickedly and began to backpaddle in the pool, performing a backward flip that brought him up near my feet to grasp my ankles so hard it hurt. For a moment I feared he’d pull me in the pool and ruin the silk dress I wore.

I stared down and met his dark, suddenly menacing, eyes, not flinching. “Let go of my ankles. I’ve already had my morning swim.”

“Why not swim with me sometimes?”

What did he see that made the threat leave and sadness come, a look so wistful he leaned to kiss my toes with the pink nails that peeked through the sandals? Then
he
was breaking my heart. Speaking with the exact tones of his dead
father: “I think that I shall never see, anyone quite as lovely as thee . . .” He looked up. “See, Mother, I’ve got a bit of artistic talent, too.”

This was my moment. He was vulnerable, touched by something he saw on my face. “Yes, of course you do, but Bart, don’t you feel just a little sorry that Cindy is gone?”

His dark eyes grew hard, remote. “No, not sorry. I’m glad she’s gone. Did I prove to you what she really was?”

“You proved just how hateful you can be.”

His eyes darkened more. A fiercely determined look came to frighten me. He glanced toward the house on hearing some slight shuffling noise. I looked that way. Joel had come out onto the grassy area that enclosed our long oval pool.

Silently Joel condemned us with his pale blue eyes, his long-fingered bony hands steepled beneath his chin. He tilted back his head and stared heavenwise. His weak, sweet voice came to us falteringly. “You keep the Lord waiting, Bart, while you waste your time.”

Helplessly I watched Bart’s eyes flood with guilt before he scampered from the pool. For a moment he stood in all his youthful male glory, his long, strong legs deeply bronze, his belly hard and flat, his shoulders wide, his muscles firm, rippling beneath his skin, the hair on his chest curling, and for a flashing second I thought he was flexing his strong muscles, preparing them for a lion’s charge that would lunge him straight at Joel’s throat. I tensed, wondering if he would even consider striking his uncle.

A cloud drifted over the sun. Somehow it caused shadows from the unlit poolside lamps to form a cross on the ground. Bart stared downward.

“You see, Bart,” said Joel in a compelling voice I’d never heard before, “you neglect your duties and the sun disappears. God gives you his sign of the cross. He’s always watching. He hears. He knows you. For you have been chosen.”

Chosen for what?

Almost as if Joel had him hypnotized, Bart followed his great-uncle into the house, leaving me standing alone beside the pool. I hurried to tell Chris about Joel. “What can he mean, Chris—by saying that Bart has been chosen?”

Chris had just come in from visiting Jory and the twins. He forced me to sit, to relax. He even handed me my favorite mixed drink before he sat beside me on our small balcony overlooking the gardens and the mountains all around. “I had a few words with Joel minutes ago. It seems Bart hired workers to construct a small chapel in that small, empty room he favors for his prayers.”

“A chapel?” I asked with bewilderment. “Why do we need a chapel?”

“I don’t think it is meant for us, it’s for Bart and Joel. A place where they can worship without going into the village and facing up to all the villagers who despise Foxworths. And if it’s what Bart thinks will help him to find himself, for God’s sake, don’t say a word to condemn what he’s doing with Joel. Cathy, I don’t think Joel is an evil man. I think, more than anything he’s trying to make himself a candidate for sainthood.”

“A saint? Why, that would be like putting a halo above the head of Malcolm!”

Chris grew impatient with me. “Let Bart do what he wants. I’ve decided it’s time we left here, anyway. I can’t talk to you in this house and expect a sane answer. We’ll move to Charlottesville and take Jory, the twins, and Toni with us, just as soon as I can find a house that’s suitable.”

Unknown to me, Jory had rolled himself into our suite of rooms, and he startled me when he spoke up. “Mom, Dad may be right. Joel could be the kind, benign saint he often appears. Sometimes I think we are both overly suspicious, and then again, you are so often right. I study Joel when he isn’t watching. I think in many ways he’s trying not to be what we most fear—a duplicate of the grandfather you both hated.”

“I think all of this is ridiculous! Of course Joel isn’t like his father, or else he wouldn’t have hated him so much,” Chris flared with sudden and unusual anger, his expression hard and totally out of patience not only with me but with Jory. “All this talk about souls being born again in later generations is absolute nonsense. We don’t need to add complications to our lives when they’re complicated enough already.”