Garden of Shadows (13 page)

There was a tiger head and an elephant head with its trunk uplifted. Garland's father had killed them both on safari. Garland had shot a grizzly bear, an antelope, and a mountain lion on hunting trips in western America. Malcolm had just begun his own collection. Two years ago he killed a brown bear. Now he talked about going on an African safari, as soon as business permitted him to take that much time off. Garland kept telling him he could go, that he would watch after things while he was away; but Malcolm wouldn't hear of it.
On the far wall there was a stone fireplace at least twenty feet long. There were windows on either side, draped with black velvet curtains. The mantel was covered with artifacts from various hunting expeditions. Against one wall was a dark brown leather couch and matching settee. Facing it were two rockers and one black leather chair with a small table beside it. Ashtrays were everywhere.
I closed the doors softly behind me and made my way to the wall on the left. On the other side of that wall Garland and Alicia lay in the swan bed. But when I put my ear to the wall, as I often did now in my own suite, I could barely hear their voices. This wall was too thick. Disappointed that my suspicions weren't proving true, I turned away when I saw a picture of Garland when he was much younger, dressed in his safari outfit, one foot on the carcass of a tiger. The picture was tilted. I moved it, intending to straighten it, and I discovered the hole in the wall.
It wasn't very large, but it had obviously been dug out neatly with some sharp instrument. I brought my eye to it and saw Garland and Alicia naked in the swan bed. I gasped and pulled myself back, looking about the trophy room, terrified that I would be discovered.
How long had this hole been here? Did Malcolm dig it out as soon as Alicia moved into the Swan Room? Or had this hole been here for years and years, perhaps dug out by a five-year-old boy?
I left the picture frame the way I had found it and slipped out of the trophy room, now feeling more like a burglar who had robbed the room of some great secret. I would never reveal to Malcolm what I had learned, I thought. I was sure he would deny knowledge of it, but what would be far worse would be my own embarrassment in letting him know that I knew he was more interested in his father's and Alicia's lovemaking than he was in our own.
Was he so taken with his father's bride? Did spying on them titillate him the way it had titillated me? My questions were answered one hot summer day.
Alicia and I had finished feeding the children. It was one of those rare days when Garland went to the offices. Christopher was now a year and a half old. Joel was two and a half and Mal five. It was Malcolm's decision that a tutor would be brought here to give both Mal and Joel their primary education. The classroom in the attic that had been Malcolm's classroom and his ancestors before him would now be theirs. For this purpose he hired an elderly gentleman, Mr. Chillingworth, a retired Sunday-school teacher. Mal hated him and I found him quite cold and much too firm in his manner with a five-year-old, but Malcolm thought he was perfect.
"Discipline is what they will need during these early years. It's when they will form their study habits for the rest of their lives. Simon Chillingworth is perfect for the task. He was my Sunday-school teacher," he said.
Nevertheless, every time Mr. Chillingworth arrived to tutor Mal, Mal resisted, sometimes clinging to my skirt and begging me to keep him downstairs. But Malcolm was intractable. The only thing I could do to ease Mal's fear was to permit Joel to go up with him, even though Joel was too young for lessons. Malcolm approved of Joel's attendance because he thought the little boy would learn something just by being present.
Mr. Chillingworth arrived after lunch for his three and a half hours tutorial session and Mal and Joel went up with him. I felt sorry for them up there in the hot attic on this particularly warm summer day, and offered the north salon, the coolest one, to Mr. Chillingworth. But he wouldn't hear of it.
"There's a sufficient breeze from the dormer windows," he claimed, "and I want the use of the blackboards and desks. The children must learn to cope with discomfort anyway. It makes us stronger Christians."
I dressed the boys as lightly as I could and shook my head in pity. Alicia was practically in tears for them. She vowed to say something to Malcolm that night, but I forbade her.
"I don't need you to speak for me," I said. "And I'm not in total disagreement with Malcolm," I added. It was a lie, but the idea of Alicia getting Malcolm to do something I had wanted him to do was infuriating.
"Very well," she said, "but the poor boys."
She took Christopher up for a nap and returned shortly after, still complaining about the heat and the stuffiness in the house. I retreated to the cool salon to do some reading, but she was too restless and too flushed to relax.
"Olivia," she asked, "don't you ever want to bathe in the lake?"
"Bathe in the lake? No. I don't even have a bathing suit," I said, and turned back to my book.
"We could go for a quick cool dip without suits," she said.
"Without suits? Hardly," I said, "and besides, I don't have any inclinations to do so."
"Oh. Too bad. Well," she said, "I think I might just do it."
"I don't want to hear about it," I said. "It's not something a lady should do," I added.
"Fiddlesticks," she said. "Garland and I have done it often."
I know I blanched, for I had spied on them once when they had. She didn't seem to notice my guilt. Instead, she left to get some towels and head for the lake.
As soon as I heard the front door close, I peered out the window to see her hurrying off toward the lake. Before she disappeared from view, however, Malcolm drove up. I was surprised to see him home so early, but I knew he wasn't above checking on Mal's tutorial. I saw him looking at the disappearing Alicia.
Then, to my surprise, instead of coming directly into the house, he followed in her direction. The hot summer breeze fluttered the lace curtains; insects trying to escape the direct sunlight beat their frail bodies against the screens. For a moment I was unable to move.
Then I rushed out of the salon and out the front door. I moved quickly but stealthily, the way I had when I wanted to spy on Alicia and Garland. What was Malcolm intending to do? Why had he followed her?
Before I reached the lake, I heard her voice and crouched down behind a large bush to peek out at them.
Alicia was already undressed and in the water. Malcolm stood on the bank, his jacket and shirt off.
"Don't come any closer," she warned, crossing her arms over her breasts and keeping herself down in the water. "Just go on back to the house, Malcolm."
He laughed.
"Perhaps I should take your clothes back with me," he said, teasing her with a movement toward her garments.
"Don't you dare touch anything! Go away!" "Come now, Alicia, surely you don't enjoy being alone here."
"I'm only here for a short dip to cool off. Garland will be home any moment."
"No, he's doing business in Charlottesville. Actually, he won't be home for quite a while."
"Get away," she repeated, but he didn't move. "I'd like to cool off, too, and it's more fun to have company."
"Go and get your own wife then, and stop pursuing me."
"But you can't possibly be satisfied with that old man "
"Garland is not an old man," she protested. "In many ways he's twenty years younger than you are. He knows how to laugh and enjoy himself. You know nothing about anything but making money. Why, you don't even treat your own wife properly," she said.
Malcolm stared down at her, but he didn't continue to undress. Her words had bitten him
"You're just a child," he said slowly, his anger building. "You married my father because he's rich, and you expect him to die any day, leaving you a fortune--but it won't happen that way. I promise you."
"Get away from here," she insisted.
"I don't think that's what you really want," he said, his voice softening. He dropped his trousers and she moved farther back.
"Go away!"
"I told you; I'm hot too."
He slipped off his shorts. Now, naked, he started into the water toward her.
"You don't want to scream," he said. "We don't want the servants here. Garland might not understand."
"You devil," she said. She swam to the right and he went after her.
"You are so beautiful, Alicia," he said. "So very beautiful. You should have been my wife, not his."
She didn't wait for him to reach her. She kicked up and swam toward the shore. He started in pursuit, but when she reached the shore, she turned on him.
"Leave me alone!" she screamed. Her loudness froze him in the water. "Leave me alone from now on, Malcolm, or you will force me to tell Garland how you keep trying to seduce me."
What was she saying? This wasn't the first time he had tried something like this?
"I've protected him from knowing what you try to do, just to give this family some peace--but no longer! I hate and despise you, Malcolm Foxworth. You're not half the man your father is, not half!" she yelled. She emerged from the lake and scooped up her clothing and her towel, wrapping it about her quickly, and then headed for the bushes, fortunately not close to me.
I watched Malcolm. He stared after her a moment and then he started out.
"My mother didn't believe that," he muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. "She ran off easily enough with some man not worth a cent."
He went to his clothing instead of pursuing her. She was nearly dressed and on her way back to the house anyway. I crouched lower in the bushes. I was disconsolate, so alone and betrayed, over and over. Slowly, slowly, I sank to the ground and began to cry silently. Where was security, truth, and honesty? Malcolm used me to fit his purposes and pursued me for my money, money he still hoped to control. There wasn't the slightest bit of love between us.
After he dressed, he began to make his cautious way back to the house, ever careful of his expensive clothes amongst the briars. He talked to himself as he went by me.
"She'll pay for this day of insult, and pay dearly," he mumbled. "The damned little conniving slut can't possibly love an old man like my father. She's playing her game. From now on, I'll play mine more subtly."
From that day on, whenever Garland was out of sight, Malcolm treated Alicia with disgust, disdain, and rudeness that bordered on cruelty. At times I was moved to take her defense, to confront him with the scene I had witnessed at the lake, but I never did.
Despite the way she had rejected Malcolm, I was angry at her for being so beautiful and tempting. I let the fire bum between them--Malcolm's fire of passion and anger, a fire that burned and singed her.
Garland was either blinded with love or too skeptical of anything Alicia told him about Malcolm, for as far as I knew, he never confronted Malcolm. Something was happening to him anyway, I thought, as time went by. He and Alicia were still passionate and loving with each other, but Garland seemed to be aging quickly. I noticed him taking longer naps by himself. His usually voracious appetite diminished. During their second winter at Foxworth Hall, he had a long, disabling cold that nearly became pneumonia.
Throughout it all, Alicia continually turned to me for guidance. I knew she was trying to reach out, to get me to help her, especially with her relationship to Malcolm; but I remained distant, cold, and disinterested. What I wanted to happen was beginning to happen. The cheeriness went out of her voice. She wasn't as bubbly and energetic. She stopped going out with her young girlfriends and spent more time alone, waiting for Garland to come home or to wake from a long nap, avoiding Malcolm in any way she could. She kept herself busy with Christopher, who was now nearly two and a half. In fact, she spent a good deal of time with the children. She was the one who started Mal on the piano, much to Malcolm's displeasure. Both Joel and Mal showed a natural talent for music, but Malcolm had the idea that musicians were weak, effeminate men who made little money.
I began to think that it was her way of getting back at him--teaching the boys something about music. I let that go on because the boys enjoyed it so much and because it annoyed Malcolm so much.
For a lime I was like degsomeone in the audience observing the unhappiness, taking pleasure in some of it, even though it did little to relieve my own sorrows.
I did not understand that my selfish pleasure permitted something else to grow. Without realizing it, I had opened Foxworth Hall to more demons of the heart and of the mind. They took their places in the shadows and waited for their opportunity to act.
It wouldn't be long before the opportunity came and the demons would bring with them more misery than I had ever imagined could live in the cold, empty rooms of Foxworth Hall.

THE MONTHS PASSED, EACH MUCH LIKE THE ONE BEFORE it, filled with tensions I thought were the result of Malcolm's attitude toward Alicia. His belligerence showed in his sharp, often biting comments and in the way he often ignored her. He was more irritable about many things, especially Mal's love of music. One afternoon he came home early and found Mal at the piano with Alicia at his side, teaching him the scales. I was crocheting a sweater for Joel and enjoying the way Mal was intuitively able to pick the right notes. There was no question that he had talent which, if properly nurtured, might grow into real musicianship.

Malcolm heard the piano and came to the salon, the rage already burning in his eyes. I looked up from my needlework just as he degcame charging through the doorway. He slammed the piano shut with such violence, he almost caught poor Mal's hands beneath the lid. I think he wanted to do that to end Mal's piano playing forever. Alicia gasped and embraced Mal as the two of them looked up at the towering Malcolm.

"What did I say about catering to these musical whims?"
"But, Malcolm, the boy is talented. He's a prodigy. Look at what he can do at his age. Let us show you," Alicia pleaded.
"I don't care what he can do on a piano. Will that make him competent in business? Will that enable him to walk in my footsteps? You are turning him into a soft, effeminate man. Get him off that piano bench," he said, but Alicia didn't release her embrace of him. "Mal, stand up," he commanded.
Mal moved away from Alicia and stood up, his lips trembling. He was afraid to cry, knowing how that would anger Malcolm even more. Usually, he sobbed silently, taking deep breaths and heaving up his shoulders. Joel, who sat on the floor playing with Christopher, looked up with the same terror in his eyes. The two boys shared their fear of their father. Whenever one was yelled at, the other would respond as if it were he. Christopher, on the other hand, simply looked interested in the sudden activity and noise. Alicia turned to me, hoping I would come to her aid.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"The boy must learn never to disobey me. I told him to spend his spare time on his school lessons, not on the piano."
"He's not disobeying you," I said, "if his mother and his grandmother permit him to do it."
"He's disobeying me!" he repeated. "He knows what I said about it." He reached forward and took Mal by the back of his neck, nearly lifting the terrified child off the ground, and dragged him out of the salon to the library for a whipping. Almost immediately, Joel began to cry. Christopher looked confused.
"Malcolm, don't!" Alicia screamed after them.
"Concern yourself with your own offspring," he said, spitting his words back at her, "and leave my boys to me."
Alicia buried her face in her hands and then looked up at me. Joel had come running to my chair to embrace my leg.
"How can you permit him to do such things?" she asked.
"I can hardly prohibit him from expressing his opinion about his own children, especially in his own house."
"But you're the mother; you should have something to say, shouldn't you?"
"Are you trying to engender an argument between my husband and myself?" I responded. I knew she wasn't, but I wanted her to think I believed it.
"Of course not, Olivia. Oh, dear," she said, "I feel responsible. I've been encouraging him and you've permitted it," she added as though just realizing it. "You shouldn't have if you knew it was going to come to this. Malcolm is so cruel. Aren't you afraid for little Mal?"
"He will be all right," I told her. "If he wants something enough, even his father won't stop him. He's more like me when it comes to that. Try to ignore Malcolm. Stay away from him," I added, filling my words with another meaning. "The house is big enough.?'
"I feel so sorry for him, though." She was crying. She got up and left the room.
I didn't call her back to comfort her; I was happy that there were strong differences between her and Malcolm. As long as there were such differences, I had no fear that she would ever respond to his amorous approaches.
Then things changed again.
On the occasion of Christopher's third birthday, Garland and Alicia held a party and invited a number of neighboring couples who had children
Christopher's, Mal's, and Joel's age. The foyer of Foxworth Hall sounded like a school yard. There were children all about. Alicia arranged for games and hung colorful paper streamers and balloons. Mrs. Wilson made a huge birthday cake decorated with all sorts of bright little animals.
Malcolm went to work in the morning, but Garland remained home to help with the party, something Malcolm thought was a ridiculous thing for him to do.
"He's ludicrous when it comes to Christopher," Malcolm told me that morning after breakfast. Garland and Alicia had left the table to prepare for the party. "He acts like a man in his dotage. You would think it was his first child."
"Perhaps he is proud of not only having been able to have a child, but having one so handsome and bright," I said. Malcolm's eyes narrowed, and for the first time I understood that he was jealous of Garland's attention to Christopher. "Didn't your father give you the same kind of attention?"
"Hardly. It was the other way around. I had to practically beg him to take me along on his business trips. After my mother left, he was so weak, he even tried to blame me for driving her away. I'll never forgive him for that. My mother loved me more than anything, and it was his own inadequacies that forced her to abandon me. Don't you understand, every time he looks into my blue eyes, he sees Corinne. He knows he could never make her love him the way she loved me. Oh, she must have hated him . . . otherwise she never would have left me. I'll never forgive him for losing her."
For the first time in years, I actually felt sympathy for my husband, and I reached out to touch his trembling hand. "But he spent more time with you when you were older, didn't he?" I asked, hoping to calm his agitation.
"Not until I was much older and I could relieve him of some of his business responsibilities. I was sent to one private school after another until college, anything to keep me out of his sight. When I was away from home, he never wrote or answered any of my letters. One Christmas vacation I returned home from boarding school and found a house full of servants, but my father gone on one of his safaris. It never occurred to him to take me along. I had no friends to speak of, so I spent the entire holiday vacation wandering about Foxworth Hall, listening to the echo of my own footsteps."
"Malcolm," I said, seeing he was in the mood to talk about his past, something he rarely liked to do, "I've always meant to ask you. After your mother left, did she ever write to you? Did you ever hear from her?"
"Not a word, not a card, nothing. When I was young, I used to think my father was hiding her letters to me and I would stay alone up in my room for hours writing her endless letters that were never mailed. I would plead for her to come back to me. I was only five years old! I needed her! I couldn't comprehend what possessed her to turn her back on her loving son. If I could talk to her right now, that's all I'd want to know."
"What good would that do you now?" I asked. "You wouldn't understand," he said, and left me rather than continue the conversation.
I was surprised to see him return home on the day of Christopher's birthday party in time to attend the festivities. It wasn't beyond him to ignore the boy's special day, even though it would hurt his father. What surprised me was the way he looked at Alicia when he set eyes on her in the foyer, where she was entertaining the neighboring children.
She was wearing one of those sack dresses that made women look more like boys, although she didn't wear any flattener to keep her breasts from poking up against the flimsy material. She had her hair up and she wore two strings of enormous pearls. At a party, with people around her, she grew radiant and alive again. She looked as she had when she first arrived at Foxworth Hall. Even Garland seemed regenerated; the tired, worn expression he had been wearing lifted like a mask.
Alicia's laughter echoed through the large room. The children were delighted with her warmth and gaiety. They trailed after her, vying for her attention. Our two boys were at the forefront, chanting her name.
Malcolm stood like a statue watching her. I expected to see that characteristic sneer, that hateful look in his eyes, but instead, I saw his face soften and his lips relax. He looked like one of the children, enamored of her.
Something wild and frightening burgeoned in my heart. He was looking at her with the kind of longing only a man in love had for a woman. What I thought had died had riot. It had been hibernating, sleeping like some giant bear, waiting for spring. Alicia's beauty was that spring. It tempted him, awoke the strong feelings in him, and beckoned him in pursuit once again.
I heard it in the way he addressed her when they spoke. I saw it in his eyes, eyes that would not move from her as she went about the foyer,
conducting the party. He was satisfied sitting in a chair, sipping tea, and observing Alicia all afternoon.
Long after the party ended and the guests were gone, Malcolm remained in the foyer watching Alicia supervise the cleanup. Garland, tired from the activity, retreated to his bedroom to rest. I saw to bathing the children and preparing them for bed.
Alicia announced she was retiring to the Swan Room to relax with a good book.
"Wasn't it a wonderful little party?" she asked me.
"The children enjoyed it," I admitted. "One wonders, though, if a three-year-old can appreciate such festivity."
"Oh, Olivia, sometimes you sound just like Malcolm," she sighed. I was sorry he wasn't close enough to hear that.
I watched her go up the spiral staircase and then I went to gather my needlework and take it up to my bedroom. I didn't rush right upstairs. The servants had some questions about some of the glassware and Mrs. Wilson wanted to discuss the menu for the coming week.
What happened next was later told to me by Alicia, but she was in such a hysterical state at the time, it was difficult to understand all of it.
I was halfway up the staircase when I heard her scream. That was followed by a loud crash against the wall of the Swan Room. I hurried up the remaining steps and rushed down the hallway to her doorway in time to see Garland crumple on the floor, clutching his chest. He was in a nightdress; apparently he had been woken from his sleep, and had come running barefoot to the Swan Room.
Alicia was sprawled over the bed, her nightgown torn from the right shoulder to the waist, her breasts exposed. Malcolm stood over his father's collapsed body, his hands clenched into fists, his face beet-red, his eyes bulging. There was a long scratch down the right side of his face.
"What's happened?" I
screamed.
"Quick, call for the doctor," Malcolm
commanded, gathering some control of himself when he set eyes on me. I looked at Alicia, who was now crying hysterically and trying to cover herself with the torn shred of her nightgown. Garland wasn't moving, so I rushed to the nearest phone, the one in the trophy room, and called Dr. Braxten.
By the time he arrived, Malcolm had dragged Garland's body back into his own bedroom and placed him on his bed. Alicia, wearing a robe over her torn nightgown, was at Garland's side, sobbing and holding his limp hand.
"What happened?" Dr. Braxten asked, rushing to the bed. Malcolm looked first at me, then at Alicia before replying.
"He had an attack of some sort and yelled out. By the time I arrived, he was like this," he explained.
The doctor placed his stethoscope on Garland's chest and listened for a heartbeat. Then he checked his eyes and his pulse.
"Must have been a heart attack," he said softly. "I'm sorry. There's nothing left for me to do."
Alicia wailed and threw her body over Garland's.
"No! No! No!" she screamed. "It can't be. We just celebrated our son's birthday. Please, no. Please.
Garland, wake up! Show them you're not dead! Garland! Garland!"
Her sobbing was so intense, it shook the bed.
Malcolm turned and fled. He didn't look at me on the way out.
"I'll contact the undertaker," Dr. Braxten said softly. He looked back at Alicia. "It's best they get here as soon as possible."
"Of course," I said.
"He did come to see me a few weeks ago," Dr. Braxten explained, "and I told him I wasn't happy with his heart then, but he made me swear not to tell anyone, especially Alicia. He was that kind of a man "
"Yes," I said, understanding Garland's motives. He never wanted to admit his age. He did everything possible to make life rosy for Alicia.
"Will she be all right? I can give her something to help her sleep," he said. I went to her, hesitating to put my hands on her. Finally, I touched her shoulder.
"Alicia, the doctor wants to know if you want him to give you something to help you sleep."
She shook her head and then raised herself slowly from Garland's body. She wore a dazed look and gazed about the room as if she were in a dream. The doctor moved to her.
"It will be better for you if you go back to your own bed," he said. "Sleep is the only cure for such great sorrow."
She nodded and permitted him to help her to her feet. As he walked her to the door, she looked back at Garland's corpse and began to cry hysterically again. I followed them out and closed the door behind me.
Malcolm was nowhere about. He had retreated to some room in the house, but I wasn't interested in locating him at the moment. I went with the doctor and Alicia to the Swan Room. Alicia permitted him to put her into her bed like a child.
"You should stay with her for a while," he told me.
"Of course I will," I said. I felt quite dazed by the events myself, but I was never one to lose control and dignity. It pleased me that the doctor sensed my ability to handle affairs in the midst of a crisis. Alicia was, after all, more like a child.
"I'll go call the undertaker," he whispered. "Call me if you need me."
"Thank you, Dr. Braxten."
"I'm sorry," he said. "He was a fine . . . I'm sorry," he added, and left.
I looked down at Alicia. She had turned her face into the pillow and was sobbing softly. I went to the doorway and closed the door, locking it behind me. I didn't want us to be disturbed for a while. Then I returned to the swan bed and sat down beside her.
"Alicia," I said. "I must know what happened here before I came upon the terrible scene. What was Malcolm doing in your room?" Her sobbing intensified. "Alicia, you must tell me. You have no one else now," I added, thinking that was a good point to bring up at this moment. It struck home, for her sobbing lessened and she began to turn to me. She pressed her hands against her face as if to stop the tears, and then brought the blanket to her face.
"It was horrible, horrible," she began.
"What was?"
"I was just lying here, reading, feeling so good about the party and how happy everyone was. Garland . . ." She started to cry again. "He was so proud, so happy."
"What happened here?" I asked, pursuing
"I didn't lock my door. Sometimes . . . sometimes Garland comes to me in the middle of the night," she said. "When I heard it open, I assumed it was Garland, but it was Malcolm," she said, looking at the door quickly, her face twisting as though the entire scene were being reenacted before her very eyes.
"What did he want?"
"He wanted--" She stopped as if telling me were the most indecent thing she could do. "He wanted me," she said, her anger growing. "He came to my bed. I told him he shouldn't be in here. He laughed and said not to worry. Garland was asleep. He said terrible things to me. He told me Garland was too old to satisfy me now, that now I would need him more than ever and it was all right since he was Garland's son."