Olivia (26 page)

"That's an enormous expense and frankly, Belinda, it would be a gamble in your case and Daddy and our family have lost enough money because of you. You don't need your own apartment. Cousin Paula lives alone. It will work out well for both of you."
"She never liked me, Daddy," she moaned, "and I never liked her. She's the one with hair on her chin. How can a woman look at herself in the mirror and let hairs grow on her chin?"
"She doesn't have to fall in love with you, Belinda, and you don't have to fall in love with her. Just obey her rules and go to school. This is your very last opportunity to do something with your life."
"Why? I'm going to get married anyway. I'll just make sure to marry someone with money." "When?"
"Soon," she promised.
"Until then, develop some skills. You can return and work in our business if you have some skills," I added.
"Oh, won't that be wonderful," she moaned. She looked away and then at Daddy. "I can't go to Boston for a year. Daddy needs me here."
"You're not here much and when you are, you're of no help to him anyway," I snapped. "Now, Daddy and I have discussed this and you either go to school or get a job, a real job, not working for us. Frankly, you can't do anything for us, but maybe you can work as a waitress or something."
"A waitress? Never."
"Daddy is not going to give you any more money," I said sternly.
"Daddy," she pleaded, turning to him. I looked at him and he raised his heavy, sad eyes to me. I made a face, warning him to hold fast.
"Olivia's . . . right," he said. He struggled with his words, but he got them said. "I've been wrong not to make you do something before this."
"That's great. The both of you ganging up on me!" She folded her arms under her breasts and pouted for a moment, her conniving little brain twisting and turning in that spoiled head like some snake in a basket. Then her eyes brightened. "Am I getting an allowance for Boston, then?"
"You'll get what you need, what you reasonably need," I said.
"Daddy will decide how much I get," she fired back at me. "Then I'll go."
I looked at him and he closed his eyes, opened them and nodded at me.
"You're a spoiled brat, Belinda. You've only taken from your family and you haven't given back anything."
"I do the best I can," she cried. "Don't I, Daddy?" He grimaced.
"Let's end this," I said. "Daddy can't take much more. I'll make arrangements for your transportation and call Cousin Paula tonight."
"You can't wait to get rid of me. I don't know why," she sang, her eyes bemused. "I'm not trying to take anyone away from you."
"There is no one you could take from me that I wouldn't give up if they went with you anyway, Belinda."
"Huh?"
"Forget it," I said. "I hope you really try to do something this time. I really do. Otherwise . ."
"Otherwise, what?"
"I'll sell you to the highest bidder," I said and left to make the arrangements.
Despite her protestations, Belinda was happy to be leaving the house. She was always excited about going to Boston. She got Daddy to buy her a new wardrobe, over my objections, and I knew she was planning on moving out of Cousin Paula's house and getting her own apartment as soon as she could work it out. She would then invite her bubble-gum friends to Boston and the whole attempt to help her make something of herself would be another bust, I was sure. However, I had at least tried. I owed that to Mother and after this, I felt that my debt was well paid.
Little did I know I was just beginning to endure the true cost. I was actually fooled into thinking that I had finally made the right choice for Belinda. She enrolled and began her schooling without any more whining and crying. She even got along with Cousin Paula at the start, and after a few weeks, she sent us rather good reports from the school.
With her gone from Provincetown, the stories died and I was able to concentrate on business and my family. We expanded even more. Samuel told me Nelson thought we should consider offering stock in our company on the stock exchange.
"Let him come and discuss it with me himself," I told Samuel, but Nelson didn't come.
His father retired from the firm and Nelson became the senior partner. He won some significant cases in Boston and was written up in the local papers as well as the Boston ones. Nelson was then appointed to fill out the term of a judgeship. It was assumed he would run for political office in the near future.
I remember feeling that our lives had rounded some long and arduous turn and we were coasting along now, relatively secure and content. Jacob was running about and spending many of his afternoons with Daddy, who had begun to feel so good he started to violate the rules about smoking and diet. When I chastised him, he begged me to let him have the simple pleasures. That was all he had left, he claimed.
I was so involved in my own work that I paid little attention to Samuel and never noticed that he was unhappy. One night at dinner, he put down his silverware and put his elbows on the table.
"I think it's time you and I had a little talk, Olivia," he began firmly, his eyes so fixed on me they were like two welding torches.
It was quite uncharacteristic of Samuel to take this tone of voice with me, especially in the presence of our servants. I raised my eyebrows and then looked at Thelma who had just finished feeding Jacob.
"You can take him to his room now, Thelma," I instructed and she did so. "What is it, Samuel?" I asked as soon as she was gone. "What could possibly be bothering you so much that you would speak like that to me in front of Thelma?"
"You have no idea?" he said amazed.
"No, I don't. I'm sorry, but I've been quite busy these days. In any case I'm not in the mood to play some game of Twenty Questions. If something is bothering you, tell me what it is directly, without any unnecessary dramatics."
He shook his head and looked away a moment before turning back to me.
"Your door, Olivia, has been locked for months and months now. I've respected it and I haven't pushed myself on you, but it's not natural for a man and a woman to live like this when they're married," he said. Then he sat back. "Did you know that Louise Childs is pregnant again? There are no locked doors in that marriage."
"Oh, so that's it. You're afraid Nelson Childs will pull ahead of you in this baby-making contest," I accused.
"No, that's not it, Olivia. My God! I have needs, male needs, and I can't imagine why you don't have female needs. All these months . . you were never once attracted, interested in me?"
He looked amazed, even hurt. I softened and sat back to sip my coffee.
"I've just been very occupied, Samuel. It has nothing to do with you."
"What do you mean it has nothing to do with me? How do you think I've felt all this time? You go to sleep at night. You put aside your work and worries for a little while, don't you?" He glared at me. "Well?"
"I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't have relations on my mind."
"On your mind?" He laughed and then leaned forward, his hands folded, his arms on the table. "I hope that door's not locked tonight," he said. It couldn't have sounded more like a threat. I felt the heat rise to my face and my heart began to thump.
"Don't take that tone with me, Samuel. I won't have it. I'm not anyone's plaything."
He snorted.
"Plaything? You're about as far away from being that as . . . as a nun."
"That's enough. Change the topic," I ordered. I turned away from him.
I felt him glaring at me a moment and then he rose and left the room. I sat there, trembling. How could he speak to me like that? What had given him the courage?
Miss Hot and Miss Cold . . I could hear the children chanting it at us. Was it still true for me? Samuel was far from an ugly man and most of the women I knew flirted with him and probably fantasized about him. Why I should be so indifferent, I didn't know, but I couldn't help how I was, could I? Surely, I wouldn't have become like this if I had married Nelson, I thought. Or would I?
That night, I fingered the lock on the adjoining door, but in the end, I didn't unlock it. I went to bed with it remaining in place. After I had put out the lights, I heard Samuel try the door and then curse under his breath. Following dinner he had gone to the den and had sat for the remainder of the evening drinking brandy. He had his back to the door and didn't turn when I looked in on him before going up to sleep.
I started to drift off when I heard what sounded like a key go into the lock on my bedroom door. I opened my eyes and listened and then I saw the door open.
"Who's there?" I cried sitting up as the light spilled in from the hallway.
"Only your husband," Samuel said with a short, cold laugh. "Remember me?"
"You have a key to my room? What are you doing?"
He approached the bed, wearing a robe and then he undid the belt of the robe and let it fall to the floor. He was naked.
"Samuel, you stop this. You turn right around."
"I won't be denied my rights," he declared and crawled into the bed beside me. I tried to get out on the other side, but he seized me around the waist and held me tightly to him. I could smell the brandy on his breath. It nearly turned my stomach.
"Samuel!"
"You just forgot how good it could be, Olivia. I'm here to help revive your memory," he said and laughed.
I tried to push him away, but he was too strong and too determined.
"I swear if you don't cooperate, I'll tell everyone. I'll tell your father. I'll tell your sister. I will," he promised. "And you know what a big mouth she has. I'll even tell Nelson," he added, "so he won't tease me anymore."
My breath caught and my heart stopped and started.
There was nothing to do but stop resisting and lay back. Once I did that, he was at me like a sailor stranded in his boat for weeks who had run out of fresh water and finally been given a glass.
"There," he said after he had spent himself in me, "wasn't that good? Aren't you sorry you've not had more of it?"
I turned my back to him.
"You don't have to thank me," he muttered.
The next day I tried to be angry, but he behaved as if we were getting along just fine. He was full of laughter and jokes and jolly with everyone. When I returned home that night, I was shocked to discover that the lock on the adjoining door had been removed.
I started to complain and he put up his hand. "Nelson Childs told me it's grounds for divorce," he said.
"What? You told Nelson? You had no right to tell anyone our private affairs. How dare you?"
"What difference does it make now, Olivia? That's over. We're really like husband and wife again. No more walls and locks between us. Right? Right," he said answering his own question.
He came to me twice more that month and quite often after that until I realized I was pregnant again. It seemed to be what he wanted the most.
"We're going to have another boy," he declared when he heard. "I just know it."
I used my pregnancy as an excuse to keep him out of my room and this time, he didn't protest when I had the lock returned. He didn't want to do anything to endanger the child.
A month later, Louise Childs gave birth to a boy they named Kenneth and Nelson and Samuel celebrated into the wee hours of the morning. I heard him come home and collapse in his bed. Slowly I rose and went to the adjoining door. Opening it, I looked in at him sprawled out, still in his clothes. He reeked of whiskey and cigars. I heard him groan.
"Where have you been?"
"What? Oh," he said smiling, "my wife has come to me? Tha's somethin' she said she'd never, never do. See, it worked. She does want me."
"Stop it. You're disgusting. I don't suppose Nelson got this drunk."
"Nelson?" He laughed. "They carried him home. Tha's how drunk your precious perfect Nelson Childs got."
"He's not my precious perfect Nelson Childs," I said stepping back. Samuel laughed.
"Come here," he said reaching up for me.
"Stop it!"
I turned, frightened. He struggled to stand and fell back on his bed.
"You get over here, Olivia Gordon Logan. Your husband wants you."
"My husband is a drunken fool," I snapped back at him.
"Huh?"
"Go to sleep and don't complain to me how you feel in the morning," I said, quickly retreating and locking the door behind me. I heard him laugh and then fall to the floor. A little while after that, he was pounding at the adjoining door.
"Samuel, you'll wake everyone. Stop," I cried. He continued to pound on the door. I had to get up and unlock it. He stumbled, swayed and stepped into my room.
"I demand my conjugal rights," he said raising his right forefinger. He walked to my bed and fell across it on his face. I lifted his feet up, took off his shoes and threw his legs over the bed. Then I put on my robe and went down to our guest room, leaving him groaning there in his drunken stupor.
He was quite ashamed of himself and apologetic the next morning. I let him wallow in his remorse and gave him the silent treatment. Of all that he had done and said, his remark about "my precious perfect Nelson" frightened me the most. I had never done anything or said anything to give Samuel the impression I had strong feelings toward Nelson. From what well of knowledge did he draw that pail of truth, I wondered.
It wouldn't be long before I tracked it to Belinda, who in her innocent little way enjoyed planting the seeds of trouble in my world to see what crop of pain she could grow for me. Apparently, despite my anger, the harvest had only just begun.

14
A Life and a Death
.
My second pregnancy was much more difficult

than my first, perhaps because I had really not intended for it to happen this soon and part of me resented having been forced to carry another child. It made me feel helpless, unable to control my own destiny. Whatever Samuel wanted he would get despite my opinion. This was beyond opinion. He had literally forced himself on me at times. It wasn't possible for a wife to say no to her husband when it came to sexual relations. He couldn't be accused of rape.

I think Samuel believed that another child would cause me to lessen my work responsibilities and give him the opportunity to become more important at our company. He expected that I would eventually relegate myself to running our home and rearing our children, much the way Louise Childs did. I knew that despite the facade he put on, it bothered him that I was doing so much more than he was. His friends, perhaps Nelson most of all, kidded him about being Mr. Gordon rather than me being Mrs. Logan, but I wasn't about to put any of our business interests in jeopardy just to satisfy the needs of Samuel's male ego.